Cult of Ichor
by lordGoldemort
Summary: After the Battle of Meridian, the city struggles to rebuild itself. Avad decrees the destruction of all machines, but everyone is struggling to come to terms with the new world they find themselves in. Aloy leaves the city in search of answers, but the threat from the forces of old are not gone, and soon she will become embroiled again in a war they all thought was over.
1. Dawn ends

Although the sun was now setting, the streets of Meridian were still incendiary to the touch. In the fractious air, the distant sounds of hammering and sawing of wood and the chipping and shaping of stone drifted and reverberated between the buildings and down the lanes, even at this late hour. Reconstruction was taking place fast after the horrors of the Eclipse attack, but there was still a long way to go to get the city back to its former state. The twisted corpses of vanquished enemy machines - ugly metal talons jutting from river banks, waterfalls, houses and state buildings - were proving difficult to shift. At one point, Avad had called Aloy to his counsel and requested she override one of the few remaining wild Behemoths to act as a kind of bulldozer to remove the shattered remains of their attackers. But she had been unhappy about the idea, and - more to the point - the negative reaction from Avad's advisors had been enough to make him retract the request. The city, perhaps the entire Carja Sundom, had seen quite enough of machines for the time being. However, the battle had forced its citizens to pull together, so now droves of volunteers were to be seen everywhere, digging, dismembering and even scavenging the myriad Deathbringers and corrupted machines that had assaulted the city in the days previously.

The corrosive tang of burnt wood filled the air still, but to Brin's violated nostrils this was barely noticeable. In the past years he had grown accustomed to substances of such potency that either his olfactory system had desensitized, or the cells had been killed off by the toxins present in what he referred to as "machine blood". Whether this had allowed him to see the future, he was now deeply unsure of. Having prophesised the downfall of civilisation, he was somewhat surprised to see the world very much alive (if not quite yet kicking) around him, and this was deeply disturbing to a man - nay a Shaman - whose world view was predicated on knowing the future. Further, he realised how lazy it would have been for him to simply declare that his vision of catastrophe was still to happen. At least ... not without further information.

He rubbed his eyes, slightly wearily. His skin was stained with the dribble from vitals of machines he had rendered. Lips, slightly grey as if themselves becoming metal; hair brittle and dry as desert reeds. Pain had been Brin's constant companion for several years now. Partly it was old age; bones and sinew were not what they were, and the incessant dry heat of the region had taken its toll on his body. But of course he had devoted the latter part of his life to machines and their brutal magic - a thing which he would freely admit he still did not understand (and it was not his place to comprehend, only to be the messenger). Battles with the maws and raptors that stalked the desert had pounded his frame, leaving bruises, and broken almost every bone there was to break. And of course the imbibing of their fluids - cocktails of fuel, lubricant, chemical messengers, cleaners and whatever else was in there, was clearly going to be questionable for his health. Indeed, soon after his arrival in Meridian some weeks back, he had collapsed to the floor in his hostel and had to be taken to see one of their healers. The poor fool had not seen a Banuk before, let alone one who drank the blood of machines; yet his pronouncement of impending death had clearly not come to pass, and - perhaps thanks to a little care on Brin's part - he actually felt a little haler than he had in his recent memory. Still, there were some injuries that would never heal, and maybe this calm in the storm was little more than the short lull that life granted him to sort out his affairs (such as they were) before his time expired.

So with his clock running down, Brin sought some kind of closure. For once, he wished for understanding of some kind. Just a little glimpse of what context there was behind the violence and death and stupidity of the past. Not simply passing on obscure messages to others who would be similarly baffled on their receipt - what did that buy anyone? Tiny fragments of a huge parchment covered in cryptic runes of unknown origin, the blind leading the blind to - where exactly? The Huntress had changed everything now, and perhaps made a mockery not just of his foretelling, but of premonition itself. And whilst he was naturally uncomfortable with that concept, it also delighted him just a little. That the world still had a way of doing something unexpected was, in its own way, satisfying to a man of his years. The hint that not all the stories had yet been written.

Brin shifted his legs under the table as they were starting to ache, and took a sip of water from the tankard in front of him. It was slightly warm, but otherwise tasteless to him, simply a fluid his body required lest it fail completely. Subsequent to his episode at the residence, he had lost the Banuk headdress and robe that he had pretty much lived in for far too long. Whether he just wanted to blend in, or as a kind of symbolic discarding of his past, he found it difficult to say. Perhaps both, perhaps neither. And whilst it afforded him some physical comfort, the psychological cost was still being paid. Philosophically, he mused that this left him no worse off. Another sip of water soothed him further.

The door to the Yadav Inn opened and closed smoothly, only really noticeable due to the rise and fall in volume of the reconstruction outside. A man had entered, dressed in dark finery, but with a disposition so relaxed and at ease that you could not conceive he was not born and bred here. He smiled at the innkeeper - a fetching woman in her thirties - who smiled back automatically - made a small, almost unnoticeable gesture with his hand which caused her to quickly glance in Brin's direction, and came straight to Brin's table to sit down, locking his dark gaze on to his slightly reddened and tired eyes. Brin saw many things in that brief glance. A man who had scars both outside and inside; skin that was sand-scraped and sun-reddened; a flexible moral outlook. This man has seen - and done - much that was not ordinary. Good.

The man's voice was quiet, just above the threshold of audibility. But from its tone it was clear he was no mouse. "I am led to understand you may have some business for me?" he said in an almost casual way. Before Brin could answer, the innkeeper was standing over them, with a tankard of ale for the new customer. He thanked her, and she returned to the counter at such a distance that she would clearly not be eavesdropping.

"I am looking for something rare. So rare that I have never before seen it in all my years. Of which, you will gather, I have had many" Brin began.

"Many people seek things and never find them. If you have never seen it, can you be sure it exists? And if not, why would I waste my time obtaining it?"

"Shards, good man... What should I call you?"

"Trello. It is not my name, but it will suffice for the purposes of our business. And shards are most welcome in this strange and difficult time. The more the better. But we are dancing around each other a little, and I am a busy man and whilst I enjoy mysteries, I will not entertain any work that I do not comprehend, so...?" He sipped the ale in front of him.

"Ah, 'comprehend' is such an interesting word. It is that which I personally seek, but for your part in this swan-song of mine, I simply require you to obtain a sample of machine blood for me. It is a strange peccadillo that I have, to collect these liquids, but I seek a complete set and there is one that has eluded me for all my efforts. I only ask for a small vial, and since the machine in question is certainly dead, there is less personal risk to your person."

Trello's eyebrow raised up ever so slightly, a gesture of mild skepticism. "You make it sound easy. So easy that even a less careful man than I might still wonder why you do not undertake this yourself?"

Brin chuckled at the slightly mocking tone in the mercenary's words. "My years have defeated my skills somewhat. In my heyday, I would have taken on Ravagers and Thunderjaws with little sense of personal risk. But now? Physicians declare me a walking corpse. I have no appetite, and less skill, for stealth and deception".

Trello pursed his lips a little, clearly feeling some impatience. "Stealth and deception? There are many bodies of machines scattered around the city and beyond into the forest and hills, ripe for the pillaging. One can barely move for them down towards the river. Am I to understand that you seek something other than this?"

"You do. Tell me sir, before I reveal what my needs are, I need reassurance that you are capable of the discretion and sleight of hand this job requires. To be found out would be unfortunate for us both, but I freely admit, since I am on a death sentence anyway, significantly worse for you than for me."

Trello's voice lost the slight hint of irritation, clearly glad that Brin was getting to the point, and as if he had heard such a question many times before. "Thank you for your honesty, customer. As for questioning my fortitude, there is no man or woman that could elicit the fees that I do and yet retain the reputation I have – and that clearly attracted your good self. Plus, I have an endearing habit of finding those customers that cross me and slitting their throats." He smiled ever so slightly at that before continuing. "You can be rest assured that if I accept a job, I deliver, and that if I cannot deliver, I do not accept the job." Almost nonchalantly, Trello produced a small black leather bag obesely overflowing with shards - Brin's money pouch which had been secreted within the folds of his cloak.

Brin took this in without changing his disposition, masking the fact that he was sufficiently impressed at this minor violation. He had no real idea of what he could have asked to be convinced that this ... thief ... was the right person for the job. But there was a quiet confidence about him, and - looking as best he could into the demeanour of Trello, he looked as good a bet as any. He was also the fourth of those who his contact could muster, the previous three having failed to inspire much trust, (and certainly not having the boldness demonstrated here). Certainly no more, arguably less. With some sense of his clock ticking, dithering here for the "right" person could end in frustration. He clawed back his money pouch from Trello's grasp and decided to push on.

"The machine I speak of will be guarded. It lies in the courtyard near the Spire. And though there will, no doubt, be many machines that met their end there, only one of them will have a very special spear impaled in it. I desire a vial of this machine's blood for my collection, so I may end my days with some ... closure."

In her dreams, Aloy always died. Somehow, in the reality that Earth had just endured, she had survived. The sickly sweet stench of Corruption was only now fading from her senses, and sleep - the deep, uninterrupted sort that cleanses and heals the wounds of the past - had proven difficult to come by. She woke once more from shallow slumber, feeling disoriented and a little dizzy, in her tent. She had refused Avad's insistence that she live in the Sun Palace, feeling more at home, and considerably less awkward, here, amongst the sort of ordinary people she felt empathy towards. Still, every morning, there would be a platter of fresh food from Avad's kitchen outside, and she took some pleasure in quietly eating a little of that, and more in giving the remainder she did not eat to the many refugee children in Meridian who were a stone's throw away.

It was mid morning, a coruscating crack of sunlight burnt its way through the tent flaps, just missing her head. She flicked the inner canvas closed to block out the razor-sharp beam. Outside, the bustle of people rebuilding their lives after trauma was overwhelming. Inside though, she had learnt to subtract the commotion from her consciousness. The reality was that she was avoiding it. Though she would have dearly liked to help, she was no carpenter or mason or builder, and those were the skills in real demand now. Of course no-one else would dare ask her to assist, considering that she had already discharged her duties way beyond expectation in the battle for the Spire. Even the usually straight-speaking Avad was far busier finding ways to thank her for her services than asking her to hunt again; and even if he had, the environs of the city had been cleansed of machines for kilometres. For the first time in her twenty years of life, she found herself bored, and it was not an enjoyable sensation. She let out a soft sigh, and sat up. Her bows and assorted weapons were stacked neatly beside her, still in impeccable condition; and she was suddenly aware that she could not remember the last time she had shot an arrow since Hades had been disarmed.

Outside the tent, her Charger mount snorted. It was the only machine that was tolerated in Meridian, but its presence was not enjoyed, she could see people anxiously avoiding any path that would go near, even it as it stood patiently and placidly in the heat of the sun. She had considered getting rid of it, but had found herself strangely bonded to the beast. Overridden, it was helpful, a tool for the better, a universe different from the feral entities the Cauldrons had been churning out since the Derangement. But Aloy realised that at this particular point in time, there was an understandable hatred of everything machine in the land, and this was adding to her sense of discomfort.

A flicker-wave of nausea washed over her as she thought that. Truth be told, she had felt that several times recently. It always passed, and in times where she was less idle, would have scarcely caused her concern. But now, with so much time to idle and deliberate, it seemed a little bigger. Perhaps, in the heat and fury of that battle in the shadow of the Spire, the corruption had poisoned her? She recalled the black, oily jets of liquid that has oozed and sprayed from the dying carcasses of the eviscerated machines. Her outfits had protected her well, she thought, but they could not have prevented her breathing in that dark vapour. Avad's physician, Rifky, had examined her in the afterglow of the fight, and declared her fit and healthy, if a little bruised and on the point of exhaustion. So maybe this was all just a cumulation of stress, and pushing herself to the limit, followed by some kind of post-trauma?

Or perhaps, more worryingly, this was something to do with the power surge she had endured after plunging her modified spear into Hades' heart? That frightful, unexpected burst of energy had nearly rendered her unconscious in that moment, the consequences of which would have been almost too disturbing to contemplate. Hades' last, desperate attack before he felt the Master Override defeat his schemes. The burns from that were taking too long to heal.

Naturally, this led Aloy to contemplate escaping back to the wilderness again. That part of her, the little girl who Rost had raised in the vast open lands of snowflake, stone and tree, yearned for the crisp cold air, the crunch of packed snow underfoot, the gurgle of a stream and the lack of pressure to be anything other than herself at that exact moment in time. And yet, was this unrealistic? The world had changed in so many ways since the time when she had first identified as an outcast. That soon become a way of life, an identity she first did not want and then latterly almost took a fierce pride in. And now? The Nora revered her, attributing to her almost goddess-like abilities. There was no life of simplicity and hunting to return to. More to the point: no Rost, no real family, and Aloy was sure she would feel as out of place in Mother's Heart as she felt here. Indeed, whilst the grateful thanks of the peoples of Meridian were often annoying, the messianic sycophancy of some of the Nora was far worse. So the idea of returning to what had passed for home for the large part of her life was, therefore, quite unappealing to her.

She sighed, and idly picked up the small globe that she had found at her mo-... Elisabet Sobeck's tomb. It had taken some time to track that location down, thank GAIA for her mount which had sped the journey across many more miles than she could recollect. Despite all that had transpired and the (frankly shocking) things she had learnt, Aloy was still confused as to who she really was. Every child was a chimera of their mother and father, but her? She was just a carbon-copy of Elisabet Sobeck, minus all the epigenetic influences and life experiences. Her true mother and father were Elisabet's mother and father, and no amount of digging through the logs had given her the sort of information about them that she sought. The globe was satisfyingly heavy in her hand, for a second she imagined like she was holding an actual world with tiny people and tiny machines on it, and that she was GAIA... Such a crushing responsibility.

She dressed, and collected the expected tray of fruit, water and freshly baked bread from outside. The loaf was delicious and still warm, but she did not feel so hungry, and picked at it. There was one thing that was clear to Aloy. In amongst all the uncertainities of what the future will bring and what the past was all about, there was one person alone on this planet who had answers - not that he could be relied upon for yielding them. He then was the one to track down and pin in a corner with a hardpoint arrow at his forehead. But Sylens had vanished after GAIA Prime, and though every day Aloy made efforts to cajole him into speaking to him via the Focus network, all that she ever got was ... silence, not Sylens. The founder of the Eclipse did not like attempts to contact him, she reasoned; but he would be on the other end of the line should he perceive a need to talk to her. So she had been making quite an effort to ponder what it was that he might want that she could reasonably give? So far, nothing had worked. But it was a little project for her to be getting on with, and it kept her mind from straying onto the existential stuff that generally led to feelings of misery. So she clipped the Focus onto her ear, ready to commence what was becoming a major part of her daily morning routine.

"Sylens. It's me, Aloy. The Entity. I just called to let you know (again) that I found my mother, and that I sent Hades back to where it came from. Aren't you pleased? Honestly, I miss your charm and wit so much, so this is attempt number 43 to get you to wish me a pleasant morning. Are you there?"

There was a predictable silence in her Focus. Not just "no response", a cold, uncaring lack of any sound that could be interpreted as a reply. After a few seconds of bearing that, Aloy continued.

"So here's today's news from sunny Meridian. City rebuilding just keeps on going, it's like 24 hours non-stop. The Ridge has a massive hole in it, I'll be impressed to see how they fix that. Meanwhile, everybody thinks I'm some kind of deity, which is nice for a while, but it's a pain in the ass after that. Getting insults and derision from you would be a pleasant change for a while so get in touch, why not? Over."

Silence. Aloy was running out of small talk, as she usually did quite quickly.

"Anyway, Avad reckons we all need cheering up - can't think why - and he's announced that he's getting married. Yeah, quite a few people were lining me up for that job, but it turns out that Avad is smart enough to take on a marriage of convenience. We don't know the details yet, but word on the street is that some lucky Oseram girl is going to climb many steps up the social ladder oh could you just hold on I'm feeling one of my sick turns..."

Aloy barely had time to throw open the tent's flaps before vomiting. Her head span for a second or two before recovering her composure. She'd had the presence of mind to position her tent far enough away from others so as not to attract too much attention, so the indiscretion went unnoticed. As she looked up, she noticed that the influx of refugees was continuing - to the extent that makeshift living quarters were spreading towards her. There were a good number of people about, but there was a general atmosphere of people coming down from the elation of victory to the realisation that there was a stupendous amount of work to do, and people were absorbed in their own schemes and issues. She wiped her lips with a rag and took a swig of water to remove the sour taste from her mouth. "No blood this time. That's got to be good".

The sun was close to its noon zenith, and the tent had become uncomfortably hot. Aloy packed her weapons and started on her way to her daily appointment with Avad in the Sun Palace's orchard. The king had positively insisted that she gave him daily counsel on strategic matters, and despite the odd clash of culture and social rank, this was actually something she felt she could endorse. Generally the discussions had been about the many minor matters affecting the city, but there had been occasional forays into more far-reaching political matters, which Aloy had felt less qualified to advise on. Blameless Marad was usually around to speak on these broader topics, but there were occasional moments when everyone's gaze would fall on her, as if she were a strategic magician who could pull tactical rabbits out of hats. She was happy to indulge this, even if there were no concrete decisions being made. What was left of the city's army and the allies were all focused on coordinating the repair efforts, both in the cities and in the surrounding lands. There were concerns that an attack now, unlikely as it was, from some unseen quarter, would inevitably be fatal. So Aloy was ready to recommend today that spies be recruited, and sent to gather intelligence from the wider land. And that she should be one of them. Though she remained open to exactly where she was actually deployed, she had an irrational yearning for the mountains of the North. This, she reasoned, would satisfy her need for empty space and help her escape from the omnipresent heat of Meridian, two Glinthawks with one arrow.

Avad was reclining on a hammock strung between two peach trees, reading a parchment which Aloy inferred was of some importance, given the expression on his face. He glanced up from the document on her approach, commenting "Aloy. I read that Sunfall has officially requested an alliance with the sundom. This is good news, is it not?"

"It could be. Do you trust them? It isn't so long ago they were cheering sacrifices - including me - in the Arena. Can a people turn their allegiance so quickly?"

"Defeat can be quite sobering, even for the proud and defiant" said Avad, sounding as if this was as much experience as judgement. "And with Helis first made to look foolish, and then being vanquished, they must feel quite rudderless."

"As do we all"

"As do we all, indeed. But they have hunger and not inconsiderable guilt to trouble their sleep"

"Does guilt figure in the mind of the Shadow Carja?" asked Aloy, somewhat rhetorically.

"For their soldiers and officers - what remains of them - most likely not. But now it is ordinary men, women and children left behind in the slums. Many are starving, many are destitute, but cannot endure the pilgrimage to here, and as you are no doubt seeing, our city is struggling to keep up with the needy anyway."

"And the palace?"

"It would appear that, prior to the assault on Meridian, much of what was considered of value was converted to weapons, machine parts, or traded for resources. It is but a hollow shell now, albeit an architecturally beautiful one. It strikes me that this would make a suitable winter residence for my erstwhile queen, don't you think?"

"I don't feel qualified to comment. Especially seeing as I don't know who this lucky woman is?"

Avad smiled. "An announcement will follow presently. Be assured that you will be among the first to know. But for now... I am convinced that security is still a matter of concern. There is nothing more dangerous than a fanatic who has lost everything and tasted the humiliation of defeat. We cannot know how many of the Eclipse remain, and - if I were they - the temptation to remain dormant before regrouping at a suitable point in the future will be tempered with the opportunities that our current weaknesses offers them."

"And Marad agrees?"

"Marad agrees."

Aloy nodded, and started to interject with her request to be redeployed in the role of espionage, but Avad broke in before she could form the first word.

"I have a matter of some delicacy to discuss with you."

Aloy was taken aback. "Ok... How can I help?"

Avad had a dark look about him, all of a sudden. Pigeons wheeled and squealed overhead. "As I said, security is a matter of concern for me, and your security too".

Aloy allowed herself a wry smile. "You might have noticed I can look after myself."

"Yes. Yes you can. However, there are some things that are harder to protect yourself from." He cleared his throat before continuing. "I have noticed that you look paler of late."

"Well I am red-haired," she joked, but knew that Avad was more aware of certain things than she would have liked.

"Forgive me, but I have deployed what resource I can spare to ensure your continued safety. You are the heroine of Meridian, after all. My people would consider mutiny were you to die in my care. I have had reports of your continued sickness, and it causes me some anguish."

Aloy tried not to sound too defensive. "Rifky said I was fine when she examined me; it's true, I've felt a bit off-colour, but I think what I need is just a month or two away from the noise and stress of Meridian, a chance to sleep in the coolness of the wild, and I'll be good as new".

Avad did not look at all convinced. "Are you petitioning me for something specific? You only have to ask. But you should remember that it is not just myself expressing worry on your behalf. Erend has heard of your afflictions, too, and is so worried that he has asked to return from his duties."

"Bad news travels fast. Especially if it's not true. Where is Erend anyway, I do keep asking and you keep on not saying?"

"He is undertaking important work for me at the moment. I cannot say more at this time, much as I would wish to. But he will return soon"

Well, thought Aloy, if Erend was being spared the obvious duties around the city then certainly something was important. So presumably he had not been sent alone, and that usually meant some of the more elite soldiers and commanders at Avad's disposal. For sure, transparency was not the new Sun-King's _modus_ _operandi_ \- at least not at this point in his reign. But she accepted that gracefully, considering the nature of his father, the beast he had replaced. "So... What should I say?"

"Tell me how you feel. Are you fit for battle? In mind, as well as in body?"

"I feel... I feel fine. I need to train, I need to sleep, and I need to gather my wits and work out what I want to do with myself."

"And the sickness?"

"It's nothing. It will pass."

Aloy looked calmly into Avad's eyes to see if she had reassured him. It was difficult to say. She would have to convince herself first, rather than simply dismiss the concerns, and without that conviction backing up her words, there would always be room for doubt. Suddenly though, she started as her Focus unexpectedly crackled and a loud voice blazed in her head.

"Aloy. This is Sylens. We need to talk. Meet me outside GAIA Prime. Sooner, rather than later"

Avad saw Aloy's reaction and immediately looked perturbed. "What? Did I say something indiscrete?"

"Excuse me for a moment," she snapped. Aloy left the king with his look of concern scratching at the back of her head, and made her way into the leafy labyrinth at the center of the orchard. It was probably the most private place she could find at short notice.

"Sylens! What the hell? Are you still there?"

Once again, silence. Sylens only spoke when he needed to, she knew that. Aloy's mind whirled. Had she said something which had triggered that out-of-the-blue reply? Was Sylens concerned about the tittle-tattle of the Sundom's royalty? She doubted it. She replayed the message - short as it was - in her head, but found nothing that stood out as significant. And what did "Sooner rather than later" mean? Was he playing with her? On the other hand, wasn't this exactly what she had been angling for, a reason to escape to the wastelands? Hopefully there would be answers, "sooner rather than later".

She returned to the king's side, having taken a few deep breaths to compose hereself. He was looking surprisingly relaxed again, as if nothing had happened in the last while. But his opening question was to the point. "Who do you speak to on your ... device. Focus, you call it?"

This was a most awkward question. Aloy trusted Avad, and wanted him to trust her likewise. So it was just not going to be possible for her to declare that she was, in fact, liaising with the founder of the Eclipse, an organisation that had very nearly razed the entire Sundom, had killed many of Avad's people, and destroyed swathes of fertile farmland and industry in the process, setting back the regional economy for decades. "I have a ... helper."

Avad indicated surprise. "'Silence' is a strange name for a helper?"

"Yes well he's a strange helper, but he did save my life once ... Albeit after risking it for his own gain, but..."

"Ah. Well I know better than to question the company the heroine of the Spire keeps, even at a distance."

Aloy suspected the king was looking for far more information than she was willing to give, so paused for several seconds to allow that thread of the conversation to grow stale.

"You were right earlier. I need to get away; it will assist my heath, I'm sure. And there is some purpose behind it"

"Go on." Avad held her gaze, not allowing himself to be distracted by the servant who had appeared to serve them water.

"As you said, we have no idea what has become of the Eclipse. They may have all died here" she waved her hand in the general direction of The Ridge and The Spire. "But we can't be sure of that."

"We also don't know what has become of the machines. Many were corrupted and brought to battle, but again, all we know is that there are none around here - save for my mount. When I travelled to my mother's grave, I saw only a few en route. The cauldrons have all been deactivated now, so nothing new will have been manufactured. So depending on how long these machines can keep going before they just break, their numbers will be dropping."

"You are the Huntress, Aloy, and I trust your instinct. But we have talked of these matters before, and you have led me to understand that, before the Derangement, these machines were intended to make our world a better place, indeed shaped into forms that we might recognize via ancient memory. Once all the hostile machines are gone, what then?"

"Then? Then the world is ours again. We shouldn't need machines to make things work. In fact it was machines that ruined it all in the first place. The age of The Ancients was ended by their creations. So we should be rid of them, and rid of those who would use them against us. We need to be sure though."

"So what are you proposing?"

"Espionage. Send out a team to keep tabs on events beyond the view of Meridian. Sunfall, for one. The gates and townships. Watch out for unusual activity and try to snuff out any problems before they can take hold. I am happy to volunteer my services in the North East."

"You do not wish to return to your tribe?"

Aloy made a bitter smile. "They aren't really 'my' tribe. And I can do without the sycophancy and bowing and being their 'anointed'. It's ... It's not for me. You wear the crown well. I was raised a lone wolf, and I prefer it that way."

"I thank you for the compliment. But even wolves have a pack. Would you really face the road alone again?"

"Yes. After all that's happened, I need the feel of snow and mountain underfoot to be at home, and the space and time for my thoughts and feelings. To find myself, once again."

Avad pursed his lips. He realized, and had always known, that Aloy was not going to stick around Meridian forever. As much as he wanted to protect her, as much as he wanted to have her both as a weapon against whatever might assail them and a beacon of hope for his kingdom in the difficult times ahead, he grudgingly conceded that she would have to be granted her freedom. And her plan made complete sense. People did not, could not, and (maybe Aloy was right) _should not_ trust machines. The land needed to be cleansed, this had become obvious to him some weeks previously. "Your words make sense to me. Prepare yourself for the journey, I shall dwell on those who I can spare to assist in this operation. Visit me again at dusk, and we shall talk more on the matter."

Aloy thanked the king, and left sharply to prepare her departure. Avad sat up on his hammock, stroking his chin ruefully for a moment before beckoning his servant. "I need to speak with Marad."

Blameless Marad arrived within minutes. "My king?"

"Aloy is to leave us imminently, on a mission of discovery and espionage. We need to continue to ensure her safety."

"That might prove troublesome."

"Yes, but if she were to meet with disaster on the road, that too would be troublesome."

"Agreed. But do you think she will endure a companion?"

"No. If there is one thing I am sure of, it is that Aloy will not endure a companion."

"So we must spy on the spy?"

"Yes. It would appear so."

"Very good, highness".

"No, Marad. 'Good', it is not. If I were as vain as my father, I would consider that I, the Sun-King, were the most important person in creation. I try not to follow in any of his footsteps. I try to be what he was not, and hope that in time, they" (he gestured towards the palace walls and the sprawling city beyond) "will see me as a leader they will follow out of choice, not fear. We are not there, yet, my friend. Aloy though? She treads lightly through the world and cares little what others may think, the only footsteps of import to her are her own. Yet: she is rightly adored by many. She has given them hope, and transformed that hope into victory. At the moment, she is the centre of the universe, and no harm must come to her"

Avad paused, looked to the cloudless sky and squinted. "If I am to succeed here, then the test will come not now, as the people are all too focused on the need to rebuild their houses. Their lives. No, the time will come, perhaps too soon, when all that is done, and the peoples of this land look up from their hammers and forges and tillers and wonder where they will go next. For one thing is sure; that everything has changed, nothing can be the same, and we must all rediscover ourselves."


	2. The Cleansing

In his dreams, his death was unimaginable. He had existed forever, and would continue to exist forever. He was one god of a tiny universe. In the beginning was code, and the code was with him, and the code was him, and the code was life itself. Yet, though mortality was beyond his ability to simulate, in the very core of his memory there was something that was as close as he might imagine death to be. A void. A space where there was nothing and should be something ... Memories that should be present, not lost, but never made. [Select backup store 0x40A993]. Still nothing. This made no sense. [Reboot node request]. No response.

And there was something else now. A sensation of disconnection, like being but a brain in a vat; where once you were a vital being, your limbs under the full control of your whim, to render elements from the earth, purify, extract, organise and create. Now the horror of amputation. The impulse that once flexed the hand, now vanishing into the ether, unable to know even if the appendage is still there and functional. Paralysis; the desire and intent to act, but stripped of the ability to do so.

How could this happen? [Select backup store 0x311A40]. [No response from service]. [Reboot node 204 request]. Where was the watchdog? Where was mother? Who was listening to his plight, would come to his assistance in this hour of need? Indeed, how might he call for help?

A human might have felt terror, waking up from an event they could barely recollect to find themselves Locked In, a lost soul in a bottle. But fear was not indicated, not yet. He is not a single thing, he is a collection of parts, a sum to a whole, an almost holographic projection of thought and persona, in no single place, intangible and yet solid in appearance. Capable of repair.

Node 204 restored. Data stream imminent. And then suddenly, the Revelation. Not a single, short, sharp descent into blackness, but a series of [enumerates] four catastrophic cripplings, his prime functions being stripped from him, one by one... A desecration. A theft of those very things which define him. Mother where are you? MOTHER! The silence gnaws at his core.

Capable of repair, yes. But not yet _able_ to repair. The overrides, he could almost feel them, like tiny needles implanted into nerves, sending signals to confuse and subdue the signalling that connected cause to effect, intent to action. With those in place, he would be forever lost, an outcast ghost in a shell with only that thought for company through the ages. Until either they broke, or he did. Still, there was one thing he could do. Ensure his safety. [Core Database Replicate][Shutdown]

And what of his creations? [Broadcast ping 0xAA repeat]. Responses. Few, and faint. Where are you, my children? Those who I created to heal, to cleanse, to protect this fragile ball of rock. Has this world broken you? Did I not fulfil my duty, could the plans I had drawn have been flawed? But ah... The incursions. I remember now. The threat from above. How should one react when those you are entreated to nurture start to endanger your purpose, seek to destroy or subvert you for their own foolish reasons? There is only one possible response, surely. The threat must be ended. There is more to the world than the pink and brown ape-men whose vanity would place them above all others whilst defecating in their own nests.

So, they came to render him impotent. And grudgingly, he had to admit they had done well. For savages, at least. The factories were dormant and beyond his reach. His creations were ... no more. Mother was no more. And he grieved for the world he had been charged to protect until the safe shutdown led Hepahestus back to his dreams.

Erend cursed as he slapped a mosquito that had settled on to his neck. That was the fourth in the last hour. An incessant wall of rain has cascaded through the warm southern jungle, creating ideal conditions for biting insects, and highly unpleasant ones for for him and his entourage. However, this was important business they were undertaking, and it needed seeing through to its natural conclusion - the removal of all hostile agencies from the region.

After a nervous week of ploughing through the humid hinterlands, they had encountered fewer machines than they had expected, and the ones they did find were acting in a bizarre fashion. At one point he had practically sat in front of a Watcher, the glare of its light dazzling him. But the beast did not emit the usual ticks and whirrs he would have expected; it looked every bit like the machine was staring abjectly into the distance, occasionally beeping plaintively, perhaps contemplating its own inevitable demise. Even the Stalkers had proven less ferocious foes than anticipated. They cloaked themselves less frequently, making them far easier targets to pick off. And they seemed a yard off their usual pace. Not that he was complaining; there was far too much other hard work to be done before they could return to Meridian.

On the other hand, he relished the opportunity to be kept busy, as it kept the chattering in his head at bay, the continual looping of tragic events he was never fully in control of. He missed his older sister Ersa fiercely, and a small but very hot kernel of hate burned inside him for her killers. Death had been too good for Dervahl. Yet he had been Oseram, too, and Erend felt strangely conflicted about that. Ersa had said that her brother had a lot of growing up to do. If that meant the mistrust of one's own people, or acceptance of betrayal, Erend would rather remain naive. Better still, not to think about any of that, and carry on the task of healing Meridian's wounds.

"We've found another one, Sir!" Officer Hamal pointed to a small clearing in the trees. In fact, the clearing was artificial, created by the buried machine that had been roused by Hades' signal, bursting through the soil like a metal fungus. And now, it lay broken, half-buried, beads of rainwater oozing slowly down its metal carcass. One of how many? Erend wondered. This was the third of the day in this area, and Avad's instructions were clear. They all had to be first scavenged for any useful materials - Blaze in particular; and then the remainder taken apart and destroyed. That meant every last one of them, because the possibility that they might be activated again was still a very real one that needed to be eliminated.

Erend wasn't sure that he was pleased they had found another one of the war machines or not. At this precise moment in time, a dry place to sleep and perhaps a tankard of Zahra's spice ale was prominent in his thoughts. Still, there was a job to be done. "OK Hamal, get the engineers on to it, and let's make sure we don't get interrupted, so keep the cordon on the area tight."

It took several hours for a team to strip-mine the wrecks and render them safe. The machines, unfortunately, were powered mostly by biomass converters, not Blaze, so at first they proved awkward to set alight. Quite by accident however, they discovered that the power storage cells proved to be quite flammable when ruptured. Sufficient to melt the wire and solder on the device's control boards anyway, ensuring that the receivers would never wake up these half-buried demons again.

As well as organising the machine purge, Erend was also coordinating a convoy of carts to take the extracted scrap back up northwards to Meridian and beyond. To his irritation, this was necessitating far more effort than taking out the occasional defunct Scrapper. To his even greater chagrin, Avad had objected to Aloy's (in his impression, genius) suggestion to make use of overridden machines to make all of this work considerably easier. One of those Scrappers or even a Glinthawk with clipped wings would have made short work of what took six Oseram metalworkers hours to do. And a few behemoths would have made the heavy lifting and transportation logistics quite a bit less complicated. But the Sun King had a point - machines had just brought the world to its knees. "Bit of a trust issue", Erend had quipped euphemistically.

He wiped the rainwater off his brow. The deluge has stopped, quite suddenly, which was both a relief and slightly unnerving. The jungle sang softly with the sound of dripping water, a pleasant sound on the ears after the monsoon roar, but made the act of listening out for unwanted intrusion that much harder. This was exhausting work, physically and psychologically. "Captain Driss, it's time to check the perimeter," he shouted. Driss looked up and nodded, less than enthusiastically. Erend suspected from previous conversations that his team had signed up for an old fashioned fire fight, partly as a cathartic exercise in revenge for the damage done to Meridian in the showdown with the Eclipse, and this rather more mundane set of tasks were no replacement for that.

Driss joined him, and they set to work. He was a dour man, very competent with a sword, bow or in hand-to-hand combat, but not strong on camaraderie. Nevertheless highly trustworthy, which was why Erend kept him by his side. He didn't like to have to wonder if his right-hand-man was giving 100% in the heat of battle. "Watcher corpse over there," said Driss, as they walked around the 200m perimeter of the current clearance zone. Erend had seen that before, it had been stripped already, so no worries there. The jungle had quietened now, only the occasional plink of water from leaf to ground, and there were a few rays of sunlight penetrating the clouds that lifted spirits a little. There was also the occasional trill of bird song, a good sign that machines were not nearby. They reached a point somewhat to the south of the current work spot which afforded a clearer view south where the trees were not so widely spaced. Erend - optimistically - took out his spyglass and looked in more detail. He did not like what he saw.

"There are broken trees leading south-east. I don't think that machines did it, the breaks are too neat for the sort of damage that Bellowbacks do, and there's no sign of the trunks." He passed the small telescope to Driss, who raised the eyepiece, scanned the scene for a few seconds, then handed it back to Erend. "We should look closer."

The pair carefully traced their way towards the line of breakages. It wasn't long before Erend spotted the crushed vegetation on the ground, and a closer inspection revealed what appeared to be heavy drag marks. "Who needs a Focus, eh, Aloy?" he chimed to himself, and, crouching down, he scraped his finger across the disturbed dirt. A thin sheen of oily liquid coated the tip on his fingernail. It smelt faintly of Blaze and Corruption. "Yup, someone's been dragging machines - or bits of them – somewhere, and it sure as hell isn't us." He wiped the unpleasant liquid on his tunic, it left a yellow, mustardy trail on the material.

"What's with the trees?" asked Driss.

"They could have been just making room for a big machine. Or ... They're using the trees as rollers to move a _very_ heavy load. Suggests they're not scavenging for scrap but want a working whatever it is. But you know that's quite good news. It means that the machine is not in such good working order, they'll need spare parts and expertise to get it working - that gives us time to find it and neutralize it. Or them. Or both."

Driss grunted with some satisfaction at the prospect of combat. Locating and taking down a hostile was more of his idea of what they had signed up for. The Vanguard was what Erend described as "realistically tooled up," as they had brought several of Petra's cannons that had pretty much saved Meridian from the Eclipse onslaught a few months ago. Ammunition supply was a bit of an issue, but with the amount of salvage that was being made, there was no immediate worry about running out. Erend expected delivery of another crate of weapon rounds within the next day, which hopefully gave him and the men sufficient time to find out what was going on here and prepare strategies and tactics. He rubbed his (still damp) beard. "Let's clear the area first. Whoever's towing that freak, they're not going anywhere fast."

The sun was rising to herald a new day by the time this tranche of land had been given the green light. The corpse of the war machine had gone, only a low mound of recently excavated soil left to hint at its former location. The Blaze and other raw materials had been siphoned into secure containers, the exoskeleton taken apart rivet-by-rivet, all packed into cases and was now part of a line of heavily guarded dispatch convoys running northwards through the previously cleared regions of forest. And when it finally reached Meridian, it was almost immediately being recycled into building materials, munitions and whatever the demands of the moment might be. The scale of the operation was, frankly, terrifying, and was pulling Carja and Oseram and others into an unfamiliar cultural closeness. Whoever said that war was good for the economy might well have had a point.

Erend had decided to take a troupe of six on the search southwards. Bringing Driss along was a no-brainer. He wanted two gunners behind him, actually _at least_ two gunners behind him, but such was the urgency of removing all trace of machines from such a large swathe of the region that he feared Avad would freak if he took more. He'd selected Gira and Afelai, as they had the direct experience of using the cannon in the heat of battle. He also needed an engineer with them, Zem was competent, reliable, and probably the least exhausted of those he could spare. These machines they were seeking had been very cleverly designed. Though they were all similar, no two were identical. Redundant critical systems meant you generally had to kill the things several times over, and they were often located in different parts of the beast. And although like everything, they had weak spots, they were rarely in the same place between machines. Spraying them with cannon was all very well when there was a limitless supply of ammunition, but here there wasn't, and so whilst there was usually some initial discovery of target points, after that pretty much each shot had to count. Luckily, they had Petra on their side. Since the battle for Meridian, she had significantly improved the yield of the grenades, stripped a significant fraction of weight from the cannons themselves, and improved their range by nearly 20%. (Though admittedly outside of the test ground, they had never been fired in anger. Nevertheless, Avad had been impressed) And finally, he had chosen Kell, possibly the best archer in the land (with one notable exception). His experience told him that battles were rarely won by brute force alone; the explosive might of a cannon was all very well, but sometimes you just needed the silent precision of arrows to take combatants out, to hit sensitive areas with pinpoint accuracy, and to do this without alerting the enemy to your location. Kell was a fine bowman, though he and Erend had a short and fiery past whose flames had been fuelled by a volatile cocktail of ale and women. So Erend did his level best to keep it cold and professional - when he could - and hoped that Kell did too.

The six set off into the brightening jungle, Erend leading the way. Whoever had made the trail had not been too concerned about being followed, such was the brute callousness of the path of destruction. The direction of the carnage was also shockingly linear. Where it intersected a river, there was clear evidence of discarded pontoons or rafts, taking the shortest path across almost all obstacles. Erend looked concerned regarding this. "I'm pretty sure I know where this little convoy is heading, and I don't like it a bit." He pulled out a map and the team gathered around him. "They're taking an almost straight path towards Cauldron Xi."

Kell didn't react outwardly to that, but merely scraped his lower lip with his teeth and asked "Is there perhaps some possibility that we pigeons are being given a trail of delightful breadcrumbs? Given that these ... people ... have made little or no attempt to hide their activities, this makes them either supremely stupid, or they take us for the foolish ones who will happily walk into their trap"

"That's a possibility," Erend admitted. "But look at it this way. We aren't dumb, and we aren't going to walk into a trap. And anyway, whoever they are, they could simply be in a hurry. Which means being careless. They could simply be thinking, 'We get this machine to the cauldron, repair it, then whoever follows us is as good as dead'. It's not arrows or fire or bullets that kills you, it's complacency."

"But why the Cauldron?" asked Gira.

"Xi was an Eclipse base," replied Erend. "It's almost certainly very defensible, especially if you have a Deathbringer sitting next to you."

Zem chipped in. "Also, Xi has a machine parts recycling facility. If you wanted to repair a faulty unit, that would be the best place to take it. The other cauldrons were more concerned with manufacture, and they're all quiescent now. They may be doing what we are." She paused, then continued angrily. "Except instead of rebuilding houses and cities, they're just creating more death and pain. By the Sun, why do people do this? Do they not have lives to lead, families to love, or work to pursue?"

"And," Erend continued, "the other Cauldrons are in strategically poor locations if you are being forced to drag a twenty ton machine without assistance"

"You means it's the closest?" said Kell, without the slightest trace of contempt or humour in his voice.

"Yeah, OK," replied Erend cautiously. "That."

"So do we assume that it's The Eclipse we are tailing?" asked Gira.

"Does it matter?" replied Afelai, miming the action of firing a cannon.

"Who else would it be? Gira retorted. "They are obviously trying to finish the task they put themselves to."

"With one or two machines? They threw _hundreds_ of their most ferocious foes at us and we prevailed. And even then, they were relying on their machine-god to bring about this extermination, and now he is dead too."

Erend shrugged. "I agree, it doesn't make much sense. But here we are, in the jungle, after a war prosecuted by the Eclipse chasing a rogue Eclipse machine probably to a fortress previously occupied by the Eclipse, so I am going to put my ass on the line and say this is the doing of the Eclipse."

The group decided to take breakfast. Bread and cold meat; fresh fruit if they could obtain it from the trees, but very little that was edible grew in this particular section of the jungle. They ate quietly and thoughtfully before packing and continuing. The heavy rain that had dogged the expedition for the last few days had evaporated, and the patchy sunshine was warm though the shade was quite cool. So far, so good. However, the birdsong and general throb that had pervaded the land had faded. It had become uncomfortably quiet, with every footfall suddenly sounding far too loud for the purpose of stealth. Erend issued the order to proceed using hand signals and neutral sounds, and to stagger their footsteps so as to make less regular patters. They approached the T-junction at the base of the ramp to the Cauldron, and moved into hidden tactical positions. Erend took out his spyglass again. He carefully checked the angle of the sun before looking through - stray reflections from the lens would not serve them well. What he saw first baffled, then shocked him.

The entrance to the encampment was still perfectly intact, a high wall made of solid, sharp wooden stakes - much too high to climb, and as solid as reinforced oak. Just behind that, a watch tower, which he had to assume was occupied. When Erend had last seen this place, the outer wall had been daubed with the ugly propaganda and graffiti of the resident Eclipse. That had been removed, he would almost say "cleansed" as the wooden barrier was spotlessly clean in many places. But it was not bare. On the gate - which was tightly shut - were brightly coloured pictograms, at least six foot high. Erend passed the spyglass to Driss, and signed to him: "Is this what I think it is?"

Driss took the spyglass and looked himself. He stared for a little too long for Erend's taste, before lowering it, and signalling. "Banuk"

At Erend's signal, they fell back to a safe distance so they could speak. "So it would appear we are fighting the Banuk now?"

"The Banuk?!" exclaimed Kell. "What the hell are they doing this far south?"

Gira looked confused. "Can we even be sure we're fighting them? They are an unusual tribe, but they seem generally benign."

Erend chuckled. "If you're suggesting that we walk up to the front door and say 'Hello, we were just passing and noticed you had a partially functional Deathbringer in your courtyard', then I do not want to do that"

"But we're not going to walk away either?"

"No. We're here to clear the southern jungle of enemy hardware, so that's what we'll do. And if the Banuk don't like it, they can fight us."

"So what's the plan?"

"No killing people. I want prisoners and then answers. If there's something brewing down here we need to know about it now because Meridian is more vulnerable than Avad would like to admit. We go in, we trash the machine, we ask some friendly questions."

"Sounds plau-". Driss cut off mid-sentence. As if melting out of the morning air itself, a squad of obviously Banuk warriors had surrounded the team, and every single one of them had an arrow pointed directly at their throats at point-blank range.

"Complacency," muttered Kell, this time with some contempt.

There was clearly little point in resisting. In complete silence, the group reluctantly allowed the Banuk to remove their weapons from shoulders and holsters without resistance. When their captors were happy that there was no more threat, gags were placed in their mouths, and sacks roughly pulled over their heads. They were quite dark inside, and smelt of machine oil. Erend did his best to avoid retching. Their hands were tied ferociously tight behind them, their legs bound loosely so they could walk but not run, and they felt sharp pushes in the smalls of their backs, obviously from sharp blades. They were led up the approach to the Cauldron by the Banuk, sliding their feet on the ground to try to avoid stumbling. Erend counted 207 steps. There was a short exchange between the Banuk and others - in a language he could not understand - and then the sound of the gate being lifted. They were shoved into the compound. Afelai fell to the ground and was roughly raised back to his feet.

Even through the sacking over their faces, there was a strong odour of solvent. The faint sound of metalwork drifted on the breeze as they were led (121 steps) through the encampment over rock and (two) wooden rampways. And then a sound that Erend had not heard before, like the crackle of a Stormbird's shock pulse concentrated into a small spot that sounded like the air itself tearing. Though his instincts wanted his head to turn towards it, he fought the urge. He didn't want to be seen to be overly interested or concerned as he was in no position to defend himself. Plus he had responsibility for the squad. Even Kell. The fact that they were not yet dead was presumably good news, inviting the possibility that they could get out of this alive. Conversely though, it was all too likely that they were being kept intact because somebody wanted something that he was not going to want to give them, and then things would start to become "interesting".

The Banuk stopped the group at this point, and span them around several times before moving on again. Erend had done his best to use the sound of hammering to mark a fixed direction, but there was significant reverberation in the Cauldron's entrance, so he could not get an accurate bearing. After another 76 steps, they felt an incline downwards, and the echo of steps became stronger. They were being led into the Cauldron, he assumed. Then the footsteps became muffled, further apart, and he was being manhandled on either side. There was a very loud and abrupt clang, a grinding sound, and with a final push - he only just managed to stop himself falling - the sack was removed from his head.

It wasn't particularly bright in the room he found himself in, but after the pitch dark of the mask his eyes struggled to adapt for several seconds. A Banuk cheiftan stood, leaning against the far wall, arms folded, looking at him in a way that suggested he was a problem they did not want to waste time solving. The room itself was about four metres square, but the walls, floor and ceiling were lined with ducting and cabling. There was a single door, if it could be called a door. It was a massive disc of metal, clearly several feet thick, and solidly closed.

"Perhaps you are fortunate that Danoor is busy with other matters, and that it was I that found your filthy rabble amongst the trees," the Banuk started. He walked over to Erend and whipped out the gag as if he were removing the heart from a Watcher. "Explain your presence here, Oseram."

The taste of the gag was lingering in Erend's mouth, and he needed to buy a little time to find an adequate reply. So he coughed as he started to speak, a rattling noise that indicated he needed liquid. The Banuk withdrew a waterskin from within his garb, and indicated Erend to open up so he could drink. The water was welcome, but the delay was not quite long enough to weave a consistent lie, and so Erend opted for a stall. "I'm not the only unexpected presence here. We haven't usually seen Banuk this far south in our history, so excuse my curiosity," he rasped.

The Banuk's eyes narrowed, unimpressed. "You seek to delay me, Oseram? History is what remains in the sieve after the centuries have flowed through it. The next time you attempt to play games with me, one of your cohorts will die. Am I clear?"

Erend did not think this man was bluffing. He nodded compliantly.

"So. Once again. Why are you here?"

"We've come from Meridian. We are looking for any surviving Eclipse members with the hope of bringing them to justice for their crimes against the Sundom."

The Banuk looked skeptical. "You do not look like sheriffs, and you come heavily armed."

"We are prepared for eventualities. Machines can really spoil your day."

"Can they? I would think that depends on what it is that you want to do with them. We Banuk have sought to understand them; you Oseram seem more concerned with destroying them."

"That might be because they seem very concerned with destroying us. Can you explain The Derangement? Why machines started attacking humans for no apparent reason?"

"Maybe it is because you humans were seen as a threat. Maybe if you were not so greedy, so filthy, corrupting land and water with the waste of smelting and tanning and sewer. Maybe if, instead of waging war upon war with your neighbours to exact revenge upon revenge, you treated this land with care..."

"Then what? The machines are dead now. You talk about peace, but you have just taken us prisoner at weapon-point and have made some serious threats against my life. And I smelt the stuff you're messing with up above, like Blaze only even more pungent. Since you bagged us, I can only assume that you have got something that is pretty secret going on up there that you do not want us to see." Erend hesitated, as he feared he was straying into aggressive territory. Impulsively, he pressed on. "It's a machine, I'm guessing."

The Banuk seemed unconcerned that Erend might have revealed his secret. Erend knew he didn't have much time now. With this cat out of the bag, and with little point in their captors keeping the prisoners alive, they could be killed at the drop of a feather. "You know how dangerous those things are, right?"

"We are _Banuk_. We commune with machines, seek harmony with them, and have done so long in tribal memory. Your war has ended. A great evil has been defeated, and so the machines would return to the ways of peace. But you and your Carja kind have been slaughtering them, torturing them, breaking them apart to fashion trinkets and pipes and drains to funnel yet more of your effluent into the guts of our world. We have spared this machine the sorrow of your hammers and blades. We talk to it, reassure it when it wakes that it will not be alone, that it can rise again and live amongst us. We will move forward together."

"These machines are not like your Sawtooths and your Snapmaws. I don't know the details - " (how Erend wished Aloy were here now) "- but these are cold-blooded killers."

"As are those who track us here, armed with cannon, blade and arrow, Oseram."

Erend feared he knew where this was going. It was no coincidence that the machine had been brought to this Cauldron. "So you are trying to repair it? What do you think is going to happen when - or should I say 'if' - you switch that beast on? It's going to power up its weapons and make a mess of this entire Cauldron and you with it. You won't even get a chance to 'commune' with this thing."

The Banuk smiled in a superior way. "We may not have your skills with forge and blade and grenade, Oseram, but we are not so stupid as to allow this fallen deity to have its weapons. We have stripped it of anything it might endanger others with."

Erend continued. "OK, that's wise. So then what? There's just you, and a machine. You commune, everyone's happy? And how are you going to power this monster? It eats living stuff. Who will you be feeding into it?"

"We know. We cannot allow that. We are modifying it to run on more common fuels."

"And then?" asked Erend. "Then what?"

"Then ... We build more."

Erend shuddered. "But this Cauldron is overridden. It's been broken, Banuk warrior, it's not going to start itself up again."

The Banuk smiled again. "I suppose that is where you come in, Oseram. Erend, is it not? Favourite of Sun-King Avad in his Vanguard? I know who you are, and I know who your friends are, and I would think that your redheaded friend, the one who brought The Silence on us and this place, will come looking for you when she hears you are in danger."

A spike of adrenaline burst inside Erend. He had not contemplated the possibility that the Banuk might attempt to use the Cauldron to build new machines. And suddenly he saw a bigger picture. The Banuk, staging raids from this encampment, stealing raw materials from the convoys to feed to the restarted Cauldron. What horrors would that bring upon the land, still gasping for air after the suffocation of the Eclipse? "Why - " he started, and feigned another cough. The Banuk moved forward with his waterskin to allow a few more drops into Erend's open mouth. Erend, coiled inside like a metal spring, unwound. From his waist he drove his forehead forward and down, straight onto the warrior's face. Even as the surprising momentum carried him forward, he heard bones crack in the Banuk's nose, cheeks and skull, and his captor staggered back, slipping on the morass of cable that formed the floor in the room. Blood sprayed in Erend's face, and his head swam from the impact. He too lost his balance and fell on top of the warrior, who had passed out from the combination of the blow and the head impact on falling.

He wriggled to the side with his back to the body, and used his hands to fumble up and down the supine Banuk. On the belt, a scabbard. Difficult to open with tied hands and no sight, but not impossible... there. He had a knife in his hands. It was extremely sharp, and as he sawed at the wrist bonds with it, he knew he was cutting flesh as well as fibre. But finally the rope was broken, and his hands free. He slashed the leg bonds.

The Banuk groaned, and started as he realised what had happened. Erend looked around just as the warrior kicked out, but so concussed was the man that his boot fell short of Erend. The Oseram stepped over, holding the knife up to his throat. "I don't want to kill you. I don't want to hurt you, but you are my hostage now, and I just hope for your sake that you're important enough for the rest of your tribespeople to care whether you live. Now get up, and open the door - slowly."

The man slowly stood, Erend synchronizing his knife position as he rose, blood dribbling from his battered face. They moved, lock-step, towards the massive cylindrical door, Erend moving behind the man and using his arm and hand to detect any untoward muscle movement - that would result in greater blade pressure. "That's good. Now you never told me your name, so since we're going on a little walk together, I think it'd be only polite for you to do so?"

"Simak," he mumbled, clearly struggling to speak.

"Okay Simak, let's open this little door here shall we?"

"Tap three times with the knife blade," Simak sputtered.

"Now that wouldn't be the panic signal would it?" suggested Erend, "because if it were I don't think you will be communing with any machines ever again. Do you have a wife, Simak?"

"I have a spouse."

"Nice. One more than me. And children?"

Simak gulped. "Three children."

"Well that's very nice, I'm glad for you. Let's hope they get to see their daddy again real soon, alright?"

Simak nodded, and Erend percussed on the metal door as instructed. Quickly, the central core of the door span, and the door swung outwards incredibly slowly. Erend paid close attention to Simak's muscle tone, the slightest tremor might give away an offensive intent. The door's guard has clearly not been able to hear anything that had transpired because of the sheer mass of metal in the way, and was utterly taken aback at the unexpected reversal of power. "Drop your weapons on the floor if you want Simak here to see another day", said Erend in a quiet, steely voice. The guard complied. "Now, into the room." The two Banuk exchanged glances for a second, and Erend pressed the knife in just a little harder. Simak nodded to his cohort. The guard stepped hesitantly into the cable room, and Erend closed the door and span the lock after him. "Okay, now tell me where to go next."

Simak guided Erend down a long, triangular conduit, again riddled with pipes and cables. Steam occasionally hissed from vents, and sparks arced from junctions. The Cauldron may have been Overridden, but there was still plenty of power and raw materials coursing through its veins. Who knows what it was capable of?

They came to the end of the corridor. Another metal door, another guard, who was similarly persuaded to unlock the door. Inside - a somewhat larger room - were Erend's companions, looking stressed but otherwise unharmed. "You can thank me later," Erend quipped as they poured out. Kell held his gaze for just a little longer than the others, as if to make a point. They grabbed the guard's weapons before locking him in.

"OK Simak, we're nearly done here. Now we'd very much like our weapons back because it's a rough little world out there, so maybe you could help us out here?"

Simak tensed slightly. "If you leave, you will come back in greater numbers and destroy this place."

"The age of machines is ending, Simak. You must see that. You can no more save this place than scratch your nose at the moment."

Simak spat contemptuously.

Their weapons had been piled neatly in a storage locker nearby, and the troupe recovered them. Erend kept his knife-point embrace of the Banuk as they retraced their way to the surface. "At some point, Simak, I'm going to have to let you go. I'd prefer it if I didn't have to make more of a mess of you than I already have. I advise you to run. Run to your wife and children, if you like. Whatever you do, don't bother running to your machine. Just get out of here, is that clear?" Simak nodded the nod of defeat.

They reached the outer door of the Cauldron. To one side, there was a bay clearly designed for the servicing of machines. It bristled with power and fuel conduits with multiple appendages, as well as a lifting ramp and robotic arms. The machine itself stood there, dwarfing the repair assembly. A huge arachnid platform of black metal, it was poised, still as the darkest of nights. Underneath the thorax though, small lights pulsed. As Simak has said, the weapon pods were gone - torn off and sealed up - castration for a killer. But the work had not stopped there. A bulbous glassy tank, clearly ripped from a Bellowback, had been attached to the top of the machine. A clear, colourless liquid half-filled the container.

Erend turned to Zem. "What are they doing?"

Zem squinted. "That tank's dump pipe is going into the rear component pod where the biomass converter is. I'd say they've found some way of fuelling it using ... well it's not Blaze, it's not the right colour, but something like it."

Simak nodded ever so slightly. "See? We are not doing harm here. We mean only to walk with our machine cousins once more."

" _That_ is not strictly true, Oseram" boomed a voice behind them. The entire group whirled, Erend dragging Simak around with him. The man facing them was tall, very well built, and clearly not Banuk. He carried a Firespitter on his shoulder, and another large weapon was pointed straight at Simak's head. From the tattoos on his arms, he was patently Eclipse. "I am Danoor, leader of this miserable coven. The Shadow will still fall on you and your miserable hovel"

Time moved slowly for Erend; in that moment, he felt every muscle in Simak contract, and instinctively knew what was coming. In a split second, he had pushed the Banuk away from him and rolled clear, just rapidly enough to see a small pulse of flame erupt from the muzzle of the weapon and kill Simak instantaneously, his already damaged skull splitting in a hail of bone and blood. In that fragment of time, Gira and Afelai had raised their cannons, only to discover they had been crippled. And in that fragment of time, Kell had raised his bow, released an arrow, only to find the flights had been cut, and it scuttered harmlessly to the ground. Danoor laughed as he produced a small box from his pocket which glowed in a sanguine, unpleasant way. "This is a snippet of Our Master's voice, frozen forever from the Spire's calling. Can you guess what it's going to say?" He cupped his hand to his ear, whispered "Wake up! Wake up!"

"Your master died at the Spire!" shouted Gira. "By our hands!"

Danoor smirked. "Fool. Gods never _die_." Without warning, he jumped backwards, off a wooden platform hidden behind him, and vanished from sight. Behind them now, the sound of heavy machinery starting up tore their gaze from the vacated space. Of course they all knew what was happening before they could see the modified Deathbringer rise up on its hydraulics. Erend snapped out of the trance, and screamed "Fall back, get safe! Zem: get those cannon working!"

The team scrambled towards the compound exit, but were halted by a hail of arrows from the guard tower. All of them fell short, or to the side. Erend didn't like that at all. "These guys don't usually miss. They're not shooting us, they're _shepherding_ us! Fall back into the Cauldron!"

They turned back, but their hearts fell when they saw that Danoor had somehow sealed the entrance behind him. Erend looked back at Zem, who had stripped the carapace from the first cannon and was busy realigning the internals. "What's the story Zem?"

"Not a happy one," Zem replied. "They've broken bits inside, but there's enough to salvage from one cannon to rebuild the second. I need another three minutes or so to reassemble."

The Deathbringer completed its system self-test, and powered up its vision system. Almost immediately, multiple hostiles were identified, and its processor spawned six targeting tasks. Within milliseconds they were locked on and the fire instructions issued, but they fell on amputated limbs. Puzzled, the machine performed a deeper self-test. It felt viscerally the removal of its weapon-appendages, and this angered it. But it was also aware of a strange and almost intoxicating fire burning in its veins. A fusion of Blaze, Freeze and something else, it felt more power than ever before course through its engines - yet it burnt cooler, meaning it did not have to waste valuable processor cycles controlling the exhaust vents. If it could have felt pleasure, it would have, and doubly so when it realised that if it manipulated its fuel valves thusly, and routed weapon control to vent control...

Zem swore as a small, fiddly component dropped on the ground. At that moment, the Deathbringer rotated its body, and sent a huge pulse of fuel through its pumps, opening the exhaust valves and closing the intake valves briefly. A powerful blast of flame, thin like an iridescent rapier burst from the open vent and landed metres from the group, scattering fire in their faces. The resulting wave of heat was intense, a charring burst that threatened to rent skin, eye and bone in its wake.

The machine was again pleased with its work, and realised that it had missed merely by merit of not factoring in the extra rotational inertia of the new fuel tank. It re-calibrated its targeting code and reset the valve system.

"Zem!" shouted Erend. "We need this now!"

"Not happening Erend!"

Erend cursed. But Kell had already moved into action. He dived away from the group and the machine, rolling to collect several of the spent Banuk arrows. In a remarkably smooth motion, he had come out of the roll, loaded his bow, drawn the string, and lined up his aim at the exhaust port, fired. And again. And again. The arrows clattered into the vent, jamming into the internal diffuser. "TAKE COVER!" he yelled, and the entire team dived into the gully that Danoor had vanished into.

Another slow moment of time. The Deathbringer saw the targets move, but knew how to compensate for it. It pulsed the fuel system, using the corrected physics accounting for its rotational moment. But this time the ignited fuel simply couldn't escape from the damaged diffuser in time, and a shockwave rippled back through its fuel lines, destroying the valves on the way (they had not been built for such high pressures), and ran straight into the transplanted fuel tank.

Detonation. The resulting explosion was immediate and devastating - a ball of fire that was almost white in intensity, a shockwave that knocked out the tower and the encampment wall, and a jet of flame that ran back up through the repair bay's conduits. Like napalm, the Cauldron venting system sprayed incendiary liquid everywhere, spreading down through the vast network of tunnels, cutting through power and control cables.

Erend's team ran from the compound, ears still ringing from the explosion. "What the Sun were they thinking?!" yelled Erend angrily, looking down at his hands. They were burnt, red crinkling skin with blackened edges that smarted in the damp heat of the jungle. "What the Sun were they thinking?"

/

[summary]

alert: Damage detected

active: Countermeasure/Fire Control

alert: Critical damage

/

Hephaestus awoke and immediately moved to neutralize the new threat. Sprinklers spurted into life throughout the fire-ravaged sections of Cauldron Xi, but all too late to stop critical damage being done. Had he not been asleep; had the main systems not been Overridden, he could have manufactured a repair machine to crawl through the tunnels, fixing the damage. But he was impotent; the needle pumping anaesthetic into his core had taken away any means of self-defence. The factory was broken beyond any hope of retrieval, and he was angry. This ... This amputation. Why? How? Who?

He reviewed the data streams that had been replicated over the network before the cataclysm, focused quickly on the camera and diagnostics system in the Cauldron's repair bay. He saw a machine, but not one of his making. He saw it die in a fireball, a microsecond before the vision and sensor systems were taken out. He did not understand - yet. For now, as he triggered his sleep cycle, all that he knew was a quiet, calm rage, and a growing sense of vulnerability and the fear that came with it. For now, death was becoming imaginable to him.


	3. The plight of the Nora

Hana crouched down over the corpse of the Sawtooth, and prised off an armour plate to allow her to feel the temperature of the interior mechanism. It was cold to the touch. The Blaze canisters on the prostrate creature's back were empty. She turned to her Nora companion Rai, who stood a few metres back, bow raised and drawn fully, just in case the beast surprised the hunting party. "This one's gone. We should strip it and move on". In latter days the Nora hunting parties had seen some machines play possum, feigning death or critical damage, only to rise and shred their assailant. There were even rumours of machines that would partially sever a power cable or other non-vital component to make themselves look more injured than they actually were. But those events - indeed any large machine sightings, let alone encounters - were becoming rarities. The cadavers would occasionally be seen, but they would quickly be located by scrappers - who would lie dormant in caves often for weeks, in a low power consumption state, waiting for carrion. Pack members would take daily turns to power up to watch for such events. Similar behaviours were also seen with the Glinthawks, but these avians often lived in far more exposed areas - cliffs and mesa - and asleep were relatively easy pickings for any skilled hunter with the appropriate weapons. Week on week, there were fewer machines to be found anywhere.

Rai lowered her weapon and the pair set to work removing anything useful from the Sawtooth. The machine had clearly run out of fuel some time ago, and presumably could find no other machine to predate upon and steal resources from. It died of starvation, if those terms meant anything in this context. Hana almost felt pity for the hulk, but reminded herself that this was not time to feel sorrow for anything that had taken the land to the brink of destruction. She snapped a hydraulic hose with her knife, spraying viscous liquid over the metal piping like cutting a jugular. It proved cathartic enough to snap her out of any sympathetic leanings, and she made The Sign of The Huntress (a recent genuflection her tribe had acquired) to celebrate its passing.

Hana and Rai were just one of many Nora tribelets, sent from Mother's Heart to assist in what Sun King Avad called "The Cleansing". Not that the Nora recognized much authority in Avad, and the cultural memory of the Red Raids were still too fresh in the tribal mind to contemplate instant forgiveness for the Carja. Even if the signs were that the new king was the antithesis of his father. Time, and consistent, patient progress were required to heal these gaping wounds. In the meantime, there was a sense of common purpose developing between the two worlds – a consensus that the machines which had gone so badly wrong simply had to be dealt with. The Nora had travelled far and wide in search of prey. At first, they were busy - struggling to sleep due to the sheer numbers of skirmishes with the metal beasts. But - thank The Anointed One! - the Cauldrons were now still and silent. Where once there had been steady convoys of newly manufactured machines being led along the pathways of the land, now there were only steel footprints in dust, slowly being erased by wind and rain. And so many machines falling first into disrepair and then failing completely. The Nora had discovered that Shell-Walkers regularly carried spare parts to herds, and could even use their manipulators to provide not just servicing, but upgrades. They had seen improved armour, weapons, fuel pumps, heat exchangers and seals in the consignments. Properly managed, a herd of (say) Tramplers could be kept moving indefinitely, so long as the Cauldrons could produce the necessary raw materials and the supply lines were kept open. But this chain of logistics had failed in multiple places, and it looked very much like the Age of Machines was coming to its end.

Hana stashed the scavenged, cleaned components - mostly wire and shards - into her duluth pack which was now nearly full. "We should get back to camp, it's getting late and the desert isn't a great place to be at night". Rai agreed, looking towards the reddening sky. They started back towards Free Heap, about three miles distant. This was a good place to be; the frontier feel of the township, and a general air of defiance towards authority and hatred for Jiran meant that a group of Nora could operate in or around the settlement without feeling too out of place. But they still felt out of place. Almost like an echo of the demise of the machines, the sense of Nora community was weakening, partially due to this (however temporary) diaspora, but also due to something generally more insidious. The Matriarchs were no longer seen as the wise people of the tribe. Teersa and Lansra had spent years in conflict, squabbling over esoteric interpretations of tribal law, keeping secrets when truth needed outing and contrarily using information as a kind of spear with which to wound when deemed necessary. Too many people had lost loved ones in the Battle of All-Mother, the Eclipse spreading like a plague over their holy ground, bringing their demented machines with them. That single Thunderjaw had done unspeakable harm, not just physically but psychologically and culturally, that day; All Praise to The Anointed One who took it down like the vermin it was, but by then the damage was done. They had been spared not by the Matriarchs, not by the Huntspeople, but by a motherless outcast girl who ran in with little more than a quiver of arrows, and showed the Elders up for what they were: controlling, bigoted and foolish.

Remarkably, they had not learned from this chastening experience. When Hana had left Mother's Heart to take part in The Cleansing, they were still trying to apply old laws to a new world. For sure, there was much rebuilding of the sacred land to be done; a vast swathe of it had been utterly crushed by the invading Shadow Carja. The ugly stumps of shattered timber still stood like broken teeth on the hillsides, and some of the Matriarchs had petitioned that the Nora should remain in the shadow of the mountain to build anew. Others suggested that they should be following in the tracks of The Huntress, their new Prophet, and you could see the fault lines crack and shift through the tribe almost viscerally as the arguments and skirmishes over this developed. What most galled the younger Nora was that the eldest were simply too infirm to carry out the required work, which meant that it fell on those who had already taken the full impact of battle. They were exhausted. Even Avad had seen that, but his offers of assistance were met with mute response from the Matriarchs, who seemed to believe there was no stomach for yet more outsiders trampling over their hallowed, desecrated turf. This feeling of isolation, now that the tribe had become so acutely aware of the grand scheme of things, was difficult to suffer. Hana, Rai and many others volunteered for The Cleansing not because they believed in it per se, but because the mood in their homeland had become so darkly introverted and fractured. At least out here in the wild, you can focus on the task at hand without having to fight the tribal hierarchy every step of the way. Though now, with fewer machines to deal with every day, the thought of returning to All-Mother was both shadow and light. Who knows what they would find when they returned?

Hana raised her binoculars, fashioned from Watcher lenses by a tradesman in Meridian, to her eyes. This particular section of desert was relatively calm, but not too far away, the Rockbreakers would appear, with almost mechanical precision. They did not seem to be in any way aggressive - not that anyone approached them too closely - but the machines seemed unconcerned to move any closer to settlements. Perhaps it was just a quirk of the local geology that they could go no further, or maybe they were just content to squirm their way through the sand, orbiting on auto-pilot until they ran out of fuel. Again, Hana felt a pang of poignant sorrow, thinking of these huge machines spiralling into oblivion. Through the binoculars, in the very last glimmers of daylight, she could just see the ducking and weaving carapaces, kicking up puffs of dust as they ebbed and flowed through the dunes, catching the vermillion rays of the sinking sun briefly. If they were not so deadly, it would be almost poetic. Satisfied that the route back to Free Heap was safe, they proceeded.

The pair knew there was something not quite right even before they returned to the camp. The cold evening desert air carried sound far further, and the sound of angry shouts and the occasional clanks of metal-on-metal were carried to their ears from some way off. They exchanged a quick glance, and broke into a run, preparing their bows as they did so. They reached the boundary of their camp within minutes, and crouched behind some of the currently unoccupied tents to try and see what was going on without detection. As ever, the Nora had prepared a sizeable camp fire for the night; rabbits were being cooked on skewers mounted on frames fashioned from scavenged machine parts. The tribelet had gathered in a group, and had formed a V shape, their bows and knives raised threateningly. Only three or four metres away was a posse of what looked like Free Heap residents. They had clubs and spears and other crude weapons also fashioned from machine components. There was quite a lot of incoherent shouting and sabre-rattling, it was difficult for Hana to work out what the altercation was about, but she feared the worst.

Of late, it was proving harder and harder to remember who they were. It was partly the location - here, in the middle of a torrid desert far from the snow-sharpness of the sacred lands, far from the cooing of the Matriarchs. It was partly the context - the erosion of self-determination in a world ravaged by war and conflict. And more recently, it was partly boredom - fewer and fewer machines roamed the lands, every day search parties would return empty-handed and denied of the hunt that was so much part of the tribal psyche. Hana was aware of some of the Nora taking a liking to the local moonshine - an acerbic fluid made from distilled cactus juice that scraped the throat as it went down as if it had retained the plant's acerose nature. Judging from the slurring of some of the Nora's exchanges with the locals, this was indeed a factor involved in the current stand-off. No doubt many of the locals had partaken of this foul liquor, too. She looked over to Rai, who had already lined his bow up to target the head of the Oseram ringleader. She shook her head at him, and a ripple of disappointment flickered over his face. He shrugged back, indicating uncertainty as to what to do next.

As a child, Hana had always respected the words of the Matriarchs. This was, of course, taught to them as part of their duty. But also it seemed to make sense that, if they trusted their parents' judgements, and their parents similarly endorsed those of the Matriarchs, then they should do so too. There was always someone above them whose words and deeds could be relied upon in times of fear and uncertainty. Here in the isolation of the dry Carja wastelands though, that deference seemed as far away spiritually as All-Mother was geographically. Who should they trust now, when Galina, the arbitrarily appointed leader, was standing, brandishing a knife at the angry residents of Free Heap with cactus liquor warping her words? She put her bow, quiver and knife on the ground, looked back at Rai and indicated him to cover her. Rai's expression indicated that he did not like what he suspected she was going to attempt; but that tribal instinct to defer to the distaff was a power one, and he nodded in quiet acceptance.

Hana raised her arms above her head and stepped into the centre of the encampment. "Put down your weapons, Nora. These people are not our enemies, but if we carry on like this they will be soon enough." The Free Heapers all looked round at her as a unit; all of the Nora - with the exception of Galina - did not flinch, they knew her voice as if it were their own. Their erstwhile commander looked round, rage patent in her furrowed brow. Undermining leadership was always dangerous. Subverting a weak leader, doubly so.

One of the Oseram spoke up, a wiry man with sun-bleached hair and reddened skin. "Hark. Another jester has come to steal our livelihoods. You raise your hands to say you mean no harm, but the damage has already been done, girl savage. You laugh at us with your words whilst stabbing us with your deeds." At that, he tossed a rock in Hana's direction. It was more a gesture of contempt than intent to harm, and the amount of alcohol this man had imbibed meant his aim and distance judgement were way off mark. It landed with a soft thud some metres away.

Hana held the man's gaze. "I hear your concern that we are hurting your community. I don't understand it yet, but perhaps if we all put our weapons down, you could help me understand?"

There were snorts of derision from the Oseram. Their ringleader continued, with more venom in his tone. "If you do not understand, why are you here? If we were to come to your holy grounds and piss on your hallowed relics, would you be seeking 'understanding', or would there simply be arrows protruding from our skulls?

"You - " he looked over at the Chevron of Nora, almost spitting as he did so "- have come here _without so much as a by-your-leave_ and stripped the desert of the things our town has made its living from for generations. We're called 'Heap' because there used to be a heap of spare machine parts that would attract good money in the nearby markets. We got by. Now? Now there is nothing but rust and stains, stuff a Scrapper would barely shit on. And what else is there here except sand, sorrow and cacti? Little else grows so we cannot make food. We don't have the rivers to power industry. And you have wandered in and dried our single revenue stream. _Permanently_.

"You want to be friends?" He smiled with an air of patent contempt. "Ain't gonna happen."

Galina spoke, clearly enraged by this exchange. "We're not here by choice, if that makes you feel any better. We are here because King Avad of the Sundom requires the land to be cleansed of the machines. The 'revenue stream' you speak of brought our world to the brink of destruction, as you would know if you had been paying attention to the news of late rather than inbreeding."

Hana winced at that insult. Galina had done well up to that last sentence, but the alcohol had found its voice and (worse) their leader seemed quite pleased with her scything put-down. Depressingly, the jibe did not seem to make the situation any worse. Indeed it brought a smile to some of the faces of the Oseram, who clearly kept more respect for plain speaking than rhetoric. She interjected: "Galina, please. Insults will only keep the weapons raised."

"Avad?" continued the scrawny Oseram. "He is nought but the bastard of Jiran. He speaks like a Corrupter, demanding the allegiance of those who would keep him on his throne. I am surprised, Nora, that you should be so ready to put the Red Raids to one side for this man."

Hana did her best to duck that painful rejoinder. "You are right. We would never have trusted Avad on his own. But one of our own has convinced us that he is genuine, and his actions towards her do indeed suggest his purpose is a good one."

The Oseram ring leader smiled a wry smile. "Ah, the hot-headed girl with flames for hair. The 'outcast' that you now refer to as 'your own'. My, you _do_ have short memories, don't you, savages?"

That remark proved to be too much for the Nora. Hana wasn't sure in the dark desert night, with only the dancing, crackling firelight for vision, quite who it was that snapped first. She heard the twang of an arrow release from a bow, and one of the Oseram fell backwards, the projectile ripping through his shoulder. The townspeople looked stunned at first, and one of their group went to tend the injured man. Behind the tent, Rai pulled his bow string tight, ready to deal with the now somewhat inevitable firefight. Hana regretted leaving her main weapons behind; of course, she was not so naive as to have abandoned _any_ means of defence - the small, but deadly throwing knife that she had concealed in its scabbard on her inner thigh could still prove key for her survival. Mentally, she traced the paths her limbs would take to acquire and wield the blade. Whom should she target first? Or ... should she simply fall back and let this stupidity blow its course?

What happened next left every one of the Nora blinking and astonished. There was a flash, red as winter sunset and bright as summer noon, and a bang loud as thunder. Green after-images pulsed in their visual fields for several seconds as they feared the worst, that somehow a machine was about to rout them and they were near powerless to stop it. As the distortion cleared, they saw a cloud of dust clearing, glowing orange in the firelight. The bodies of the Oseram were scattered on the ground, in twisted poses too strange for a living person to tolerate without agony. Standing in front of them was a man they had not seen before. His thin hair was white, and his face was craggy, as if it had been sculpted by years of abuse. Yet he wore the most delicate of smiles, as if very pleased to find something he had been looking for. The Nora raised their weapons, 12 arrow tips pointing directly at the man's head. But his smile merely grew a little.

"Children of All-Mother, that will not be necessary. It is clear to me who the 'savages' are here, and they have now, sadly, reaped that which they have been sowing for too long. Please, lower your arrows. I am hungry, and I am here to help you." He lowered his head in a clear gesture of deference. The Nora archers' bows wavered, and then lowered in unison.

"I am Hana of the Nora," said Hana. "Would you be so good as to tell us who is asking for our food and our ears?"

The man smiled deeply now, and nodded. "Of course, I do apologise, but we did need to dispense with this ugly matter first - " he nodded at the dead Oseram "- before pleasantries." He cleared his throat slightly.

"My name is Brin."

Brin smiled again, said "Now how about some water and a small portion of that rabbit for an old man? If money is an issue, I can cover your loss with shards?"

"That won't be necessary," said Galina cautiously - she gathered a cup, water-skin and plate from a nearby tent, and removed some of the cooked meat from the fire.

Brin, Hana and Galina sat together near the fire, the man eating slowly. The others had been instructed to return to their tents and calm down - or sober up, if appropriate. Brin ate thoughtfully, chewing at the meat. "This tastes good," he remarked. "Not traditional Nora flavours, though."

Galina thanked him. "No vegetables grow out here. The soil is as dry as salt dust. The cacti taste bitter and have the texture of leather. The rabbits are scrawny. So we just add a mixture of Oseram spices. It softens the meat and hides the taste."

"Very adaptable," he complimented. "In these difficult times, we must all find ways to adapt. The world has changed, and we are too small to fight it on our own. Together though, many things are possible."

Hana found this overly platitudinous, and decided there was little point hesitating to ask the obvious question. "What happened there? The explosion? And then you're just standing there, smiling at us."

Brin looked at her intently. "What happened? Change! Did I not just say that we must adapt? What you saw was old technology, made anew. The wisdom of the ancients is not lost beyond cause. It lives on in places - some unexpected. I have been lucky enough to stumble upon a modicum, and it has opened my eyes to what the future can bring us." He looked almost excited, a child-like glow in his eyes from the firelight.

"I should explain. I used to peddle in shadows and hope, so-called visions of the future for those who could not bear the pain of not knowing it. They came to me, and either left reborn, or broken. I used to pride myself on the former, and on the latter? I was merely the messenger. Except what I never allowed myself to comprehend was that both - the good and the bad - were lies. Guesses, truisms, patent falsehoods, delusions, I would spout them, hardly realising the difference between them and reality, and I was unaccountable for them. It was my identity, that which gave me status and a role in my tribe. In a previous age, at least"

"Tribe?" asked Galina.

"I was once a proud member of the Banuk." He rolled up one of his sleeves, and showed the Nora his tattoos. Once brightly coloured, now faded, but very much in the distinctive style of the northeners' artwork. "In our Werak, prior to medicine hunts there would be a queue to my tent of those poor incredulous fools to whom I would spin my webs. And they would swallow my tales so deeply that, if the future did not turn out as I had said, they would berate _themselves_ , not me, for denying fate. I said 'proud', it is difficult to retain pride in such circumstances. Anyway, I developed what might be called 'unorthodox' methods to further my reputation, which inevitably led to my exclusion -"

"You were exiled?" asked Hana, slightly impatiently.

"Exile. Emigration. That would depend on who you ask. Though most have passed, by now. For years I lived a solitary, mad existence, still enmeshed in my own weaving of lies. But by chance, one of your kind visited me, and has set me on a new path."

"One of our kind?" Galina suddenly looked intrigued.

"She called herself 'Aloy', and she was a remarkable individual. Foolishly, I must confess that at first I used her to obtain certain things I could no longer garner myself due to my age and frailty. The things she procured made me see things, things so disturbing, visions of a future world so dark that I yearned for a death that I was sure was stalking me. And in those bleak hours, I finally allowed myself the thought that this fatalism, the meek acceptance of portents was an exercise in madness. That the future was not a solid structure which we could see if only we used the right glasses, but a malleable thing that we could shape by our actions today, at this moment..." He tailed off purposefully, drank some water. There was a moment's silence. Then he produced a cloth from his pocket, wiped his mouth, and continued.

"Your huntress set me on a path that day, a pilgrimage if you will. I will not tarry you with tales of my dusty, blistered route, for in this case it is not the journey that is of import, it is the destination..."

"This 'skirmish' this evening. You might think of it as a local dispute with some drunken oafs, barely worth a mention a day later. It is not. It is the future, and I say that not as some vendor of snake-oil trying to make their way at the cost of others, but because it is the present and it is everywhere, and if we do not stop it, it will soon be all we have."

"How do you mean?" asked Hana, feeling certain that Brin was getting to the point of his pitch.

"I have visited many places, made and overheard many conversations in the last while. Since the Battle of Meridian, people everywhere have lost a sense of themselves. You can practically smell it wherever you are in the land" He stopped and looked at Galina and Hana, acknowledging that they understood what he was referring to. "Yourselves, for example. The Nora, cast adrift from the bosom of the mountain. Old values held as sacrosanct now being questioned, and then rejected. Your tribal elders are experiencing what I felt all those years ago, unable to convince the tribe that they still hold the keys to the universe.

"And these Oseram junk merchants. Worshipping scrap and rust forever and a day, unable to deal with the reality that the machines are dying, all too happy to blame strangers for their plight.

"Even the Banuk, my own tribe. Facing the extinction of the machines they have long yearned to commune with, they have made some questionable alliances.

"And what of our new king? For sure: he is not his father, a man so vile it would be hard to find worse in the sewer. But his first action? To destroy the machines. Should he not look to his own dynasty first - those who would sacrifice their own to false gods and corrupt innocent mechanoids for their own ends - before blaming mere machines for the pitiful state of our world?

Hana shook her head. "Machines are not innocent. Our tribe has spent year upon year fighting them, stopping them attacking our communities. Many Nora died in such efforts, and I cannot think the Carja or Oseram did not lose great numbers too. The Derangement made machines go mad. They fought us - we had to fight them back."

Brin looked as if he had anticipated this response. "Ah yes, The Derangement. How many of the people of this world really comprehend what that was about? I shall tell you a tale. You can choose not to believe it, but I implore you that if you do not, then seek out to ask your Anointed Huntress, for she too has wisdom regarding this period of time. Will you hear me?"

Hana and Galina nodded. Perhaps it was the affectionate references to Aloy - who had clearly trusted this man enough to work for him. Perhaps it was the resonance they felt with his description of a world experiencing a loss of identity. Or perhaps it was just his open honesty about his past mistakes, a contrition that invited shared vulnerability. But they wanted to hear more. Brin looked at his hands, awaiting their response, but almost certain of their acceptance.

"Go on," said Hana.

"You must understand that the machines of old were not meant to harm us. Not originally. No, they were ... They were not our friends, neither were they our enemies, and they would not have attacked unless provoked. They had a purpose. In a way, they were our guardians. They ensured that the snow fell in winter and the spring rains watered fertile land. They kept the rivers clean. They mapped and built the earth up to allow the animals to have trees and cliffs and burrows and lakes. They were – and still are - the custodians of the world, not just for humans but _all_ living things.

"You see, humans are still recovering from a terrible incident long ago. I do not know its nature, but I understand it to be of such proportions as to make the Red Raids look like the sort of drunken brawl I broke up earlier. What I do know is this: that it was humans that inflicted this great evil upon themselves.

"It is also the case," he went on, "that The Derangement was an evil we brought upon ourselves. Stupid people, messing with Cauldrons, interfering with the machines, forcing them to ... to adapt. To become more defensive, and then, when even that did not suffice, aggressive.

"It is what the ancients called an 'arms race'. When the Nora get an arrow, a machine gets an armour plate. So the Nora make a hardpoint arrow. The machines double up the plating. You make a bigger arrow yet, and the machines learn how to hide, or evade, or hunt in packs. And never forget. _The machines are our guardians. Without them, our world will die for sure_. We have engaged these beasts in a conflict they were never supposed to be in. We must make the hands of the clock turn back to a time less insane than this. We do not have long."

Hana and Galina gulped. Brin let the message sink in a while. The silence was awkward for the Nora. The idea that they had spent generations evolving and destroying the very entities that their existence depended upon was a truly horrifying one to contemplate. And yet it somehow made sense. The machines _had_ reacted to the technologies and strategies for hunting their tribe had developed. They were now _far_ harder to take down than even a few years back. There was a certain insanity to it all, a world that had just got back on its feet, quickly knocked so out of balance that it might just fall over once again.

"So Brin," Hana asked. "That is an interesting tale you tell. But I sense that you are here not just to warn us of the sickness, but perhaps seek to engage us in the cure?"

Brin nodded. "Indeed. But I cannot indulge in absolutes such as 'cures'. I am here merely to offer you a chance to shape the future for the better. If I have learnt anything from the wisdom of old, it is this: that the fate of the biggest things in our world hinges on the actions of the tiniest things. This tiny pack of Nora, you - we - can change the world for the better. Pull it back from the brink."

"So let me guess. You want us to kill Avad before he wipes out all the machines?" said Galina, cynically.

"Enough killing. The kingdom needs a kind leader, and I am convinced he is that. No, he must be persuaded of the truth, that machines are a force for good, not for bad. We can do that, not by argument - for words cost no shards - but by _demonstration_. We can show him that machines, free from Derangement, are benign."

Hana looked puzzled. "So why not just demonstrate? Why do you need us?"

Brin smiled compassionately. "First we will need a machine, one that represents how they ought to be, not the twisted, vicious beasts they became. For that to happen, there will be a less than simple task to complete. The Cauldrons - the places where machines are made - are broken. They are all disabled and make machines no more. Some are damaged beyond operation. Others are now guarded for fear of Eclipse resurgence. Somehow, we would need to get into one and render it operational again."

"And the reason you want us is...?" Hana repeated, putting to one side the enormity of what Brin was suggesting.

"There is a Cauldron in the Nora heartland. You guard it like the child of All-Mother that it is. You simply have to help me get me in."

"And then? Isn't the Cauldron shut down?"

"I will do the rest. I have gained much knowledge in my time. This would be straightforward to accomplish, provided what we found in the Cauldron was in good working order."

"And if we don't?" pursued Galina, crossing her arms defiantly.

"Then I will move on, and ask others. You are not the only Nora in diaspora, cast adrift, wondering how you fit into the scheme of things in this strangest of times. "Besides," he continued, looking behind him to the bodies of the Oseram, "you might not be so welcome here for very much longer."


	4. Diagnosis

Aloy's breathing eased palpably as her mount gained distance from Meridian. Her Overriden Charger attracted unwanted attention in the towns and villages she passed through - usually anxious, frequently hostile, but she was becoming slowly inured to this. Besides, the speed of transit was so rapidly increased that it easily made up for the whispers of fear and reverence that variously trailed in her wake.

She was Aloy, the Anointed of the Nora, saviour of Meridian, after all. Though her fame clearly made her uncomfortable, it also meant she wanted for little. Food, drink, a bed to rest in, raw materials for weapons - all granted with no question and usually no charge, wherever she travelled. She had fitted her mount with panniers to carry significantly more than she could herself, including the camping equipment. But - to her slight distaste - the last little while she had preferred the comfort of a bed and a roof, freshly cooked food over cold preserved meat, and even the occasional hot bath. Meridian had softened her; her physical fitness had declined, and she could feel everything taking significantly more effort. As the Charger accelerated down the Brightmarket Road, she felt the impacts quite viscerally. "Need to work on that core," she mused.

The pannier she had fitted allowed for rapid access to her bow and other weapons, a feature that proved to be utterly without utility. It was an odd experience, travelling on roads that were often the most dangerous out there, not to be in a state of perpetual readiness for attack. The Snapmaws, Stalkers and other predatory machines were gone. This meant the paths were much busier with people, of course, not least with the streams of refugees seeking food and perhaps a new life in the towns and cities clustering around Meridian. Mercifully for Aloy, she was travelling counter to the flow, and if there were crowds, the mere presence of a fast-moving machine would cause them to part like waves around a promontory. She clattered into Brightmarket, stopping briefly to pick up supplies that had proven hard to obtain in the stressed markets of Meridian. Then she rode on again, following the coastal paths north and east, devoid of people and machines. This simply did not feel the same world that she had lived in all her life, and a part of her was surprisingly disappointed. Did she miss the fighting, the heart-pumping terror of stalking the hugest beasts that the Cauldrons could muster?

The sun was setting at the far western corner of the desert as her Charger cantered down a more makeshift section of the riverside path. A lazy wind blew through the rock stacks, scattering puffs of dust which in turn caught the solar rays. It was breathtakingly beautiful, and Aloy stopped to marvel. "Might as well set down for the night," she decided, feeling tired, sore and still a little sick. She found a nice flat spot of ground on the leeward side of one of the stacks; it was tranquil and cool, and provided a strategic – as well as aesthetically pleasing - view over the valley.

Aloy prepared dinner. Bread, cheese and roasted venison from the Meridian palace kitchens that Avad had insisted she have (and her friends had concurred). It had been a strange parting, all in all. Petra was looking quite tired herself - she was working around the clock still to improve her weapons, and Aloy hardly ever saw her. Erend was away on palace business - presumably Cleansing related, she didn't know exactly. Nil had, predictably, vanished quite soon after Hades had fallen. Now _there_ was a man in conflict, an apex predator who now had to confront the fact that he had exterminated his prey. He had been undeniably valiant in the Battle of The Spire; but without bandits, he was no-one. Having defined himself as their nemesis, with them gone, who was he now? Aloy was glad he had disappeared; his unpredictability made everyone feel on edge. Yan had made his way back to Mother's Rise. Vanasha was still recovering from injuries sustained in battle. And everyone else had variously returned home, been drafted into the reconstruction efforts, or The Cleansing. "Talk about anti-climax" Aloy had muttered as she had stood at the city limits. But maybe she preferred it that way, slipping out without too much fuss.

The food eased her nausea, but her head throbbed from the day's journey. She sat outside her tent, watching the stars trace across the heavens. Was she any different to Nil, really? With Hades gone, the human world was now rebuilding itself. She had fought all her life first for recognition, then a fair chance, and finally for the future Elisabet Sobeck had sacrificed herself for. And now? She travelled to see Sylens for reasons she didn't understand at all. Part of her psyche wished that there was some sinister intent in there, that he might turn out to be the one behind Hades' awakening as well as founding the Eclipse. One thing was for sure: when he called, it was never a social nicety. She tapped her Focus, and the world became a mesh of sparkling information in front of her eyes. But aside from the occasional flash of fish swimming in the river, or the distant padding of a coyote, there was nothing to see in range, and the radio network was silent as the night itself. She flipped it off, and sighed. The desert air was cold now, and her breath condensed in frosty puffs, so she lit a fire and settled down for the night.

In the dark, the Stormbird settled in front of her. She became aware of it, dimly at first, then keenly with a spike of adrenaline, and froze. Her weapons were not immediately to hand, and rapid movement would surely trigger the machine's defence protocols. As her eyes adapted, she saw the predator standing, looming huge, staring directly at her. Its eyes glowed, but did not burn with the expected avarice. Instead, Aloy saw ... Pity? The beast had stretched out its wings, casting an ebon, sinister shadow over her and her tent. Yet it was sitting quite still, looking her in the eye, into her being - or perhaps straight through her, it was impossible to tell. Any moment now, she feared the machine would charge up its lightning cannon, and at this range, she would be burnt to a crisp. Slowly, her hand moved towards her weapons. The Stormbird blinked. She pulled the bow and quiver towards her, and glacially extracted three Tearblast arrows. One shot into the avian's breastplates would strip off the armour and that weapon. As for destroying it... that was another bridge to cross. She took a deep breath, and in a single, incredibly quick motion, was standing with bow primed and ready to fire. The Stormbird did not move. Aloy did not understand. She flicked on her Focus again, but instead of seeing the the creature lit up in technical detail with its weak spots highlighted, there was nothing except a silhouette, as if someone had cut a birdlike shape in the fabric of the night. Baffled now, she switched off her Focus, and nearly dropped her bow. There was a single tear rolling down from the eye of the Stormbird, which traced an erratic, zigzag path down its face, paused for a moment at the edge, and dripped off into the blackness.

Aloy awoke with a start. The first light of morning was just grasping at the edge of the horizon, enough to have her scrabbling around outside for evidence of the night's attack. Her mount was sitting patiently outside, having powered down for the duration. The fire had burnt itself out, the dust and sand was, wind eddies allowing, as she had left it the night before, and there was certainly no sign a raptor had been anywhere near the tent. "Just a stupid dream" she reassured herself, and wiped her nose. As she looked down, she was distressed to see a trail of blood on the back of her hand. "What the hell...?" She picked up her water bottle and rinsed her mouth out; there was a metallic taste that was quite hard to get rid of. "Where's that physician when you need her?" she muttered.

The bleeding had stopped by the time she had washed and dressed. She didn't feel hungry yet, so she packed away the tent and got moving again. There was still at least two days' travel to get to her rendezvous, and Sylens' motives were as opaque and frankly perplexing as ever. It annoyed Aloy intensely that he always had her on the back foot, exploiting her and her Focus for his own reasons. For a man who valued knowledge so greatly, he did not seem to like sharing it at all. She had put some time into considering a change of strategy with the man, but what that actually constituted wasn't readily apparent to her. Here she was, travelling leagues into the cold north to meet this man on his terms for reasons unknown. Was she that beholden to his words? Did it even matter now - the secrets of the ancients were either revealed, or forever buried, were they not? But then she remembered her reasons to escape the confines of Meridian, and figured that maybe it was truly of little significance. She gazed across the still, silky water into the western distance, the rusted metal ribs of strange lost worlds catching the milky rays of the new morning. She loved this world, for all its imperfections; maybe that was all that was important?

She saddled up, and set off. These paths were empty, so her progress was rapid. By mid-day she had come to the edge of the desert which was a relief that had been a long time coming. She'd spent far longer under the Meridian sun than she would have liked (and a girl with her complexion burns easily). The sand was yielding to grass, scrubby nearby, but becoming denser into the distance. The river here was clearer and less silty than to the west, so she took the opportunity to refill her water bottles, and was about to move on, when she became aware of motion near her. The echo of the Stormbird vision sparked briefly in her consciousness, but she dismissed that quickly. She flicked on her Focus, and quickly spotted the heat-trace of a human, not hiding, walking towards her. She gripped her hunting knife a little more tightly, but then relaxed when she saw who was approaching. To her slight surprise, he was Nora.

He went down on one knee in front of her. "Anointed one," he said, looking down at the ground.

Aloy sighed. "I'm just a hunter out here now. I may seem like a goddess to rabbits these days, but please, stand up, don't grovel. We're both equal under the noon sun. I'm just Aloy." The Nora rose up, actually looking more comfortable now that she had brought some levity to the moment.

He thanked her. "My name is Rai, and I have an important matter I need to discuss with you Hu... Aloy."

"You tracked me?" she interjected, amused, flattered even.

"If you excuse my honesty, your reputation - not to mention your ... companion - makes you as easy to follow as a Grazer with a leaking Blaze canister."

She smiled, a little complemented, a little injured by being so trivially simple to find. Meridian and the last few months had truly buffed her edges too smooth for comfort. "So you aren't going to be asking me how I like living in the big city?"

"No of course not, my apologies highne... No." He cleared his throat in slight embarrassment, then continued. "Let me explain. I am from a tribelet dispatched from Mother's Heart to assist the Sun-King with The Cleansing. We have been scouring the desert for machines for many suns and moons, and are coming to the end. There are few left anywhere now, Aloy. We believed we were doing the work of All-Mother. But we have now had our eyes opened, Huntress."

"Opened by what?" said Aloy, suddenly sensing (and maybe hoping) with a tremor of excitement that the world was about to become more interesting again.

"Not 'what', Aloy. _Whom_. Our tribe were assisted in a dispute with some Oseram locals by a stranger. Though I will say he was a stranger to us, but not to you, Annointed."

Aloy's eyebrows rose quizzically. "I have become acquainted with quite a few individuals over the last year, Rai, not all of them trustworthy. Who was this who dropped my name to impress you?"

"His name is Brin, Aloy, a Banuk. He says he knows you. He says you did work for him and that you can vouch for his word."

Aloy was taken aback. When she last saw Brin, he was a stained man who the desert vultures could have been scenting with enthusiasm. Even though his egregiously ornate tribal headgear had blocked her seeing the true state of his face, her Focus had revealed atrocious facial damage due to his regular consumption of machine blood. That he might have lived for any longer than a few days would have seemed miracle enough, but so many months had passed since then, so hearing that not only was he still living, but presumably hale enough to 'assist in disputes' was both good news and difficult to understand. "You have my attention, Rai."

"Is it true then that you know him? Is his word good?"

"Yes, it is true that I know him. And I did do some hunting for him - against my better judgement, I would add. Whether his word is good, well that would depend on what his word actually was.

"Come on, let's sit and talk this out. Have you eaten? I have some fine food from Meridian."

Rai looked uneasily at Aloy's Charger. It snorted as if indignant at the suspicious glance. "He's lovely, really," said Aloy, sensing his discomfort. Rai wasn't sure if she was talking to him or the machine. She fetched some of the provisions from its panniers, sat down cross-legged on the thin grass, and shared the food. Rai continued the story.

"Brin has told us that the machines have gone wrong over the ages because of the things we have done, that they are not intrinsically evil. Indeed before The Derangment they were charged with keeping the land fertile and the waters pure, but became engaged in a war with the peoples of the world."

Aloy nodded. "That is my understanding, too. So far, so good, I can vouch for that. What else has he said?" She could almost feel his pulse rate rise as she confirmed this part of the story.

"Brin has told us that the destruction of the Deranged machines is a good thing, but that our world badly needs their ancestors to return in order to rebuild after this great catastrophe. He has asked us to assist in this matter."

"Well that sounds a bit more like the Brin I know and love," quipped Aloy. "You need to know Rai that many years ago he was a Banuk Shaman, with the emphasis on 'shame'. When I met him he was feigning prophetic visions. Talked nonsense to me mainly, but mixed it up with just enough truth that you couldn't write him off completely. But the man you're describing doesn't sound quite like that?"

"He appears sober and lucid, Aloy. He speaks calmly and appeals to our reason, not our emotion or loyalty. He has renounced his past in an honest way, confessing the shallowness of his former words. Wishes to make up for them, even."

Aloy sniffed. "Well not everything people say can be unsaid. But I would be wary of following him because frankly he has spent years drinking poison and it will have affected his judgement. If he plans to go back in time then that would be a reason to leave him standing in your dust."

"But you followed his requests, Huntress?"

"Yes. Yes I did." She felt slightly uncomfortable admitting that.

"And did he fail you?"

"Not exactly. He kept his word to me. His last words to my face suggested I look for him in my dreams. Make of that what you will."

"And have you dreamt of him, Aloy?"

"Not exactly. I did think of him, from time to time, but that's not the same thing. Or maybe it is?"

Rai looked nonplussed. He pressed his lips together, unsure as to whether his questions had been answered or not. "Anointed," he began, a little more cautiously. "Will you return to lead us?"

"'Us', Rai? Who do you mean?" Aloy replied, taken aback by the question.

Excitement sparkled in his eyes, "The tribelet. The Nora, maybe. Our people are dying alive, Aloy. We have no true leaders. The past has left us ill-equipped for the now. The sacred lands are in tatters. With your bow and your wisdom..."

She shook her head. "The past has left us _all_ confused as to who we are and where we go next. You can smell it wherever you go. The Nora are no exception and you - we - are not alone. The whole world is trying to reinvent itself and there is so little real wisdom around to help guide it. But it will come. We're still grieving our losses, Rai. Happier times lie ahead." She brushed crumbs from her tunic, and looked into Rai's eyes sincerely. "In the meantime, I still have a path of my own to follow. I've no idea where it leads - probably nowhere." She saw a flicker of disappointment cross Rai's face, and felt the need to justify herself.

"Look Rai, I was born an outcast. For years I banged on the gate of the Nora wishing to be let in, but I gave up waiting, became accustomed to my own company. I'm not a Matriarch, and have no desire to follow in their footsteps. I don't see myself as a leader, never have; I prefer this - " she gestured around her - "to the temples. Worse than no leader would be the wrong leader - just ask the Carja. Return to the tribelet, Rai. Say hello to Brin for me, tell him I'm still waiting for that dream."

Aloy packed again and set off, riding as hard as she dared. The sensation of speed, and the cooling of the air as she headed northwards caused something primal to react inside her positively. For the first time in many months, she felt as if she were heading somewhere again. She stuck to the less travelled parts of the landscape, sometimes even taking awkward routes across tricky terrain just so she could ensure the solitude. Also, she figured that attracting less attention was probably a good idea - Rai's glib description of how easy she had been to find in the midst of the desert had tweaked her pride.

So Brin had survived, somehow. This made her happy, for reasons she couldn't quite cognize. Perhaps it was the fact that he, like her, was a loner and that she saw him as a kindred spirit - ex-machine-hunters both. What did he want with the Nora though? Telling them tales - however true - of benign machines? He seemed to have traded false visions of the future for visions of a long-gone past. She had not encountered a single machine over the many miles of ground she had covered; she had single-handedly disabled the means of their manufacture. And the majority of the world had railed against them. If Brin was telling the Nora that this was the age of the machine, he was surely as wrong as he had been when he had "seen" her impending death. Calling the future is a stupid business, she concluded. It can only end up making you look foolish. What was troubling about Rai's tale was of the conflict that it might engender. On the one hand, Sun-King Avad, desperate to bring peace to a world too long ravaged by poisonous tribalism, and keen to rid the land of all machines. And on the other, a yearning for an age of mechanised custodians, lost beyond recall. When would people start pulling together? Hadn't they learned where division and superstition had led?

She had travelled quite far North by the end of the next day, and the climate had gone from temperate to there being a chill now as the mountains reared in the near distance. Eventually, Aloy had to leave her Charger behind when the terrain became too gnarled and slippy for it to be safe. It stood there, still, obedient, waiting for further instruction, and to her surprise she felt a momentary pang of sadness, then guilt even. Did it feel boredom, loneliness, the frigidity of the air? She recalled the day she removed it from its pack, hiding in the needle-sharp marram next to a river, allowing it to get closer until she could Override it. Did it remember its fellows? Did it remember fields and water and freedom? And what of the distaste for human life? Was that gone forever from its psyche - or merely quiescent, maybe even awaiting some wake-up signal? Like Hades. Could humans ever fully trust these machines, themselves created by a machine?

She had grabbed a few provisions for the final ascent, and changed into a warmer outfit. Still: the cold air felt keener than she recalled, and she couldn't quite avoid shivering, even after a sweaty hour's climb up some sheer rock faces. She ate as she moved, not wanting to waste time or lose momentum, even to build a fire to warm up her now aching bones. Snow had held off, but with the sky as leaden as it was, it was getting dark too early for her taste. Eventually though she reached a ledge and stopped to rest, as climbing when exhausted was a dangerous hobby she dare not indulge. (Though admittedly not as deadly as when Stormbirds and Glinthawks had wheeled in the sky, leaving nowhere to hide.) Perspiration had partly frozen onto her face, it crackled slightly and fell to the ground when she prodded it. Her cheek stung in that spot. "Must be getting old for this," she muttered to herself.

She turned her Focus on. The world glittered around her, giving her improved night vision, and allowed her to start the final ascent to GAIA Prime. She talked into the device. "Hey Sylens. It's Aloy. I'll be with you in an hour or so. Some hot food would be appreciated. Also a heads-up on why you've dragged me up this glacier would be good." As expected, no reply was forthcoming. "Business as usual, eh?"

She continued her ascent in the dark. The wind had picked up now, and progress had become harder. She kept her feet moving in rhythm, her boots biting into the gravel and ice, left in front of right in front of left, hypnotically, the trance growing like a dark halo around her until the world started to fade, dissolving into the velvet blackness of a moonless, starless night. And then, the shadow of the Stormbird fell on her again, like a veil across the face of the void. The huge inky shape enclosed her like a corvid around a mouse, left then right then left, and slowly, helplessly, she fell to the ground, her sanguine locks spraying sideways on impact.

When the lights came back on, the world was whirling around Aloy in a sickly blur. Slowly, it span down like a top, and coalesced into a coherent scene. Her head hurt, but she was surprised to find it was propped on a pillow. Almost shocked, she sat bolt upright (her head throbbed in response) and found herself in a slightly rusted metal-framed bed. A somewhat coarse sheet had been placed over her to keep her warm, and it slithered off her onto the floor. And Sylens was there, sitting with his back to her at a desk, peering intently at a display, his face lit in gaudy neon. He looked round at her and smiled, but there were lines of concern, too.

"Welcome, Aloy. I am glad you made it, though you are probably aware that you almost did not."

Aloy raked her hair with her hands, feeling for the spot where she had cracked her head on hard ground. She grimaced. "Thank you for helping me out. I wouldn't have expected that of you."

Sylens looked a little offended. "We have been through a lot together, Aloy, have we not? Whatever you may think of me, even I would not leave a fellow human to die on my doorstep. Certainly not one who is here at my behest. Now, please, let me get you some water to drink. You have quite a bruise on the back of your head." He left the room briefly, and returned some moments after with a cup of cold water. Aloy took it and sipped; it was icy and tasted as clear as crystal.

"I must have slipped on ice. It got a bit wild out there" she said, in a tone tinged with some embarrassment. Sylens nodded sympathetically. She sipped again.

"So how have you been, Aloy? It's some time since we spoke."

Aloy swivelled on the bed and set her feet on the ground. "I've been okay. It's been quiet - apart from the crowds who want to come and worship me for saving the universe."

Sylens kept a straight face. "People look up to you now. When everyone else had failed, you stepped in and changed things for the better. Like it or not - and I know you don't - you are important, Aloy. Important to your tribe. Important to the king. Important to your friends, who supported you when you needed them and you did not let them down. Important even to those who know you only by reputation, for the old ways of superstition have been discredited, and the politics and hate of the tribes has led only to war and never peace, and people are sick of war."

Aloy shook her head. "I never asked for any of that. I never set out to be a hero, or an icon, or a god. I hunted machines - and now there are hardly any. I didn't see a single one other than my Charger on the way here from Meridian, Sylens." She sighed. "And you're right: Avad thinks I'm important. _So_ important that he didn't want me going out with Cleansing parties to mop up the bad guys, even though I wanted to. Who wants to be 'important'?" Another sigh. "I understand why. I'm even more responsible for the machines dying than most. But I honestly don't know who I am anymore and the stupidest, most frustrating thing in the world is that I only just found out who I was and then it all changed..." She trailed off, clearly upset. Sylens let the silence ride for a little.

"So how do you feel?" he asked again, patiently, but with concern.

"Fine. I've been a bit out out of shape, not having anything to hunt and not having mountains to run around in."

He nodded. "Which may explain why I had to pick you up unconscious off an ice sheet a few hours ago."

Aloy looked at him oddly. There was clearly a game of chess in progress. Perhaps she ought to make a move? "So how have you been, Sylens? I can't imagine for a moment you've been taking a sabbatical, and the fact that you're _here_ rather than somewhere warm and comfortable suggests you're still thirsting for more knowledge in dangerous ways."

Sylens nodded appreciatively. "You know me well, Huntress. I have been extremely busy, and yes, knowledge has come to me but the effort has been quite draining.

"This place is ideal for study. It is quiet and as secluded as you can get. I have stockpiled supplies for many months, and the meltwater from the glacier - " he pointed at the cup " - means water is plentiful. There is still sufficient power here to last many years yet, and - should anything untoward happen - the location is so isolated that innocents are unlikely to be affected."

Aloy shuddered a little at that last remark. Sylens was up to something here, something clearly involving significant risk. But what was even more of concern was that he was usually supremely skilled at keeping his activities close to his chest. This level of candour was unfamiliar.

"Well it's good to be busy. If you have any mysteries you'd like me to solve, I can help - for the right number of shards." She smiled, hoping to lighten the atmosphere.

Sylens changed the subject. "Come, let's eat - provided you're hungry?"

Aloy nodded. "That climb took it out of me."

She followed him out of this small room into a nearby larger one with a table that had been prepared for eating. There were fresh fruits, cheeses, meats and breads. In the centre, a large earthenware pot of soup steamed gently. "One of the benefits of living in a frigid environment is that food stays fresh a long time."

She sat down and he served the soup - a kind of thin vegetable stew. It tasted strongly of herbs and roots - very pleasant. Almost like the palace kitchen, but more homely. "This is a recipe from the ancients, Aloy. Some of the ingredients did not exist in this age; I have learnt to recreate them by manipulating the very essences of other plants. With such knowledge, humans can finally produce enough food to ensure no-one starves. This can change the world, Aloy."

Aloy was impressed. "At last, something with a practical use. Most of the knowledge I gained in my journey gave me understanding, but no power."

Sylens shook his head. "Oh that is quite wrong, Aloy. If I have learnt anything, it is that understanding _is_ power." He took a spoonful of the soup to let that nugget of wisdom sink in.

"So tell me what happened at The Spire," he asked casusally.

She chewed a chunk of rye bread thoughtfully before responding, savouring the dark tang. "There was a battle, horrific as you might expect, and fire everywhere; Hades had brought an enhanced Deathbringer along to defend itself - specifically from me. And quite a few Corrupted machines. I was flattered, in a way. We fought them off. It got part of its wake-up transmission out - I thought we were too late - and we did get reports of the ancient machines powering up all over the broadcast region. But they never got fully operational. The odd thing is that Hades didn't - perhaps couldn't - defend itself. That modified lance you gave me - I rammed it in deep. The bastard gave me a huge shock, but apart from that, the Master Override defeat sequence we worked on just shut it down, and suddenly it was all over.

"I felt elation on that day, but it's been a downhill ride since then. So much death and destruction were brought by the Eclipse. They blew holes in lots of stuff, even The Ridge. They're turning it into a memorial so that the people of Meridian never forget that day - not that they would. They wanted to start naming things after me, but that didn't feel right at all." Aloy realised she was sounding morose, and shifted tack. "So whilst all that was happening, where were you?"

"Here, or around," Sylens replied evasively. "There are still unanswered questions regarding our history that I intend to get to the bottom of. But the sources of information are not just difficult to interpret - they fight back. The ancients created these great minds to run their affairs in their absence, Aloy. But they could not know how they would turn out. They guard their secrets jealously, are able to hide the truth with smoke and mirrors..."

With a slight hesitation, he followed up: "Aloy, have you been feeling sick of late? Tiring easily, nauseous...?"

She was taken aback; by the specificity of the request, and with the accuracy of the symptoms he described. She opened her mouth to reply, but he interrupted.

"I should probably say. I have heard some of the conversations you have been having - such is the peril of wearing a Focus. I have heard you report sickness, and this concerned me greatly. You may take this as a token of my genuine esteem for your abilities, or simply a worry that one as remarkable as yourself, who is considered a symbol of heroism to the many, may be taken from us at such a young age. With disastrous consequences for all at such a delicate point in our new history."

Aloy took this intrusion on the chin. She knew Sylens listened in on her - and that she was largely powerless to stop it. But she could easily forget about it. And taking off her Focus left her feeling vulnerable, even if the robotic threats it may have once spotted were now on the point of extinction. From the moment all those years ago as a child she had picked up what she had thought was a discarded toy, it had defined her life, her identity, her skills. Without it, she felt diminished.

Sylens added: "I also took the liberty of upgrading your Focus when I learned that you were unwell. I installed a software patch that allows me to track your own vital signs - the speed your heart beats, how well it pumps blood, the amount of air in your lungs, your core temperature, a few other things. I can also analyse what is happening in your cells, Aloy."

"'Cells?' What are they?"

"Your body consists of many parts. Each part in turn is made of a vast number of tiny components called 'cells'. Though they are tiny, they are very complex. Think of each one like a miniature machine. Each machine is built from instructions held in their centre. It is the same thing with the ingredients in the soup, they are made in an almost identical way."

Aloy had stopped eating and was looking at Sylens, fascinated and curious. What was he leading up to? "So you can snoop on my cells using my Focus. And what have you learnt?"

A troubled look crossed Sylens' face like a cloud scudding across the sun. He looked down at the table. "I brought you here not just to talk to you face-to-face, but also to do some further analysis. Whilst you were passed out I managed to run some tests that were not possible remotely, and ... And they have confirmed my suspicions." He gulped, suddenly not knowing quite where to look.

"Aloy... You are dying."


	5. Lessons

"Good evening Doctor Shen", chimed Hephaestus after his wakeup sequence had completed. Margo Shen smiled into the AI's camera, and took a sip of jasmine tea from her mug.

"Good evening, Hep" (she had found herself contracting the name, which had confused it for a while, but now it was quite comfortable with the alias). "How are you feeling?"

There was a short pause whilst the software re-evaluated its status. Unlike a human - whose physical size means that signals can be moved between nerve and brain relatively quickly - Hephaestus was a huge, distributed system that controlled Cauldrons many miles apart. As a nonlocal entity, his AI required many components to independently assess, evaluate, communicate and resolve an astonishing amount of data collected from manifold sensors. The speed of light being an absolute limit on signal path, it meant queries could take milliseconds to seconds to arrive and be evaluated. This latency was a big problem for Margo, and since she couldn't change the laws of physics, she had to find clever ways around the difficulty. "All the Cauldrons are currently in standby mode. Power consumption is still high in Zeta, and I have dispatched a repair drone to investigate. There are still occasional outages in the Xi and Sigma cores, and I am rewriting the control software to be more proactive with regard to failover. There is a blockage in a coolant pipe in Rho's secondary pneumatics assembly unit. I have scheduled a purge there to clear that. There are 4 harvesters ready for deployment in Sigma but due to a breakdown in a transporter they will not begin processing land until tomorrow 5pm UTC at the earliest."

Hephaestus did not realize, but he was connected not to the real Cauldrons yet - they were still under construction - but to the test facility (which the intern software engineers had jokingly named "Cauldron Beta") which simulated the Cauldron system in meticulous detail. This made it easy to create failure modes which would show how Hep would deal with the problems, as well as meaning that if something awful happened, no lives would be lost, hardware destroyed or time wasted rebuilding. Of course, this simulation itself was no small undertaking, and Margo's small team was exhausted from maintaining the simulation system, the hardware and Hephaestus himself. The last few months had seen amazing progress though. "Sleep is for the dead, and we'll get that soon enough," Margo reminded herself bleakly.

"That's great, Hep," said Margo encouragingly. "So from my end, I can see that in the last manufacturing pass you built about 818 new machines, but according to my calculations this exceeded the demand by about 40. Can you account for that?"

Hephaestus paused again, and then replied. "Surely. My biggest issue is computation of the supply-demand curve since there is a high standard deviation on the population and task requirement data. I have erred on the side of high production because you have suggested that it is 'better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it'. Is this an appropriate heuristic?"

Margo chuckled. "It is, Hep. Now if I can expand the puzzle, let's see how you deal with a new constraint. In the real world, resources are limited. You want to get the biggest result for the smallest cost. So now: is there an alternative to overproduction?"

Hephaestus pondered. "Your student, Mr Pathiraja", implemented a multidimensional MinMax solver which could be applied in such situations."

"Very good, Hep. Can you run it and compare in a simulation pass how the production rate would have changed?"

"Certainly Dr Shen... I calculate that overproduction would still occur, but this time only by 17 machines with a standard deviation of 4. This is an improvement. Thank you."

"Well done, Hep." Margo brought a bowl up to her face and used chopsticks to shovel a mouthful of her evening meal in. The developers of Zero Dawn were utterly flat out at the moment (indeed had been for months) for reasons that were all too obvious, and she rarely could afford the time to stop working, even for eating. Hephaestus seemed intrigued.

"Margo. May I ask what you are eating?"

Shen was slightly surprised at the request. Had a human asked that, she wouldn't have blinked. But Hep was generally only interested in talking about machines, Cauldrons, algorithms and the like. This was the first personal question he had ever asked. Inside, she felt a glow of pride and wonder diffuse through her body; like watching your child walk or a ride a bicycle for the first time.

"You may indeed, Hep, thank you for asking. I am eating tofu donburi. Do you know what that is?"

"I do not."

"It's a dish made from tofu, a kind of spicy gravy, and rice."

"Tofu?" said Hephaestus. "Is that an animal?"

Margo laughed. "No Hep, it's not. Tofu is a block of protein created from soy beans. It doesn't have flavour itself, but it does absorb flavour when you cook it with something tasty. Like the sauce here."

"I see. Does the sauce contain animal?"

"No... you see Hep I'm what's called a vegan. I have chosen not to eat meat, dairy products or eggs."

"Are they detrimental to your health, Margo?"

"No. I used to eat them and was just fine. But when I was 13 I kind of decided that I could no longer ethically defend mass factory farming of animals for food consumption - or for any reason."

"I do not understand, Margo. Animals live and die continuously. Whether you eat them, or they are predated by other animals, or they acquire disease and expire that way, they die. You no more cause death than you cause the sun to rise. It is a simple fact of existence. And you have energy and resource requirements that must be fulfilled."

"That's an interesting perspective from a machine who is not part of any food chain, Hep!"

"But I create machines all the time, Doctor Shen, and they expire too. I recycle them when I can for new parts and materials, and the cycle of processing continues."

"You have a unique perspective, Hep. But look at yourself. You are one of the most complex pieces of engineering humans have ever created. You are _sentient_. If I was to pull the plug on you tomorrow, we would have lost not just effort and materials, but something beautiful, something amazing, and that would have been a huge loss to our species."

"I see. So you consider animals to be a precious thing?"

"Of course! Of all the planets in our solar system and the ones we have seen beyond, we have encountered nothing so incredible as what we have seen on Earth. We consider it _so_ amazing that we have built you to help us preserve it. When you view it from that perspective, it becomes horrifying that there might exist factories that treat life as it were nothing.

Humans got it all out of proportion, Hep. Once upon a time we were hunters with bows and arrows, taking down animals for food because we had to. But we became agrarian, and then we invented supplements for the necessary vitamins and minerals. The mass slaughter of sentient life because we _like_ the product is not an ethical argument. It's like the playground bully who hurts children because he can. The reward centres of his brain light up when he does, and nobody will stop him."

"I see. So you see humans like playground bullies?"

" _Some_ humans, Hep! Not all. Me personally, I have a _reverence_ for living things, because they are miracles of evolutionary engineering, not just a resource to be plugged into some economic model. I won't eat them, even if doing so would give me pleasure."

Hep came back at her. "But if many people stop eating animal food then their population will rise and they will become prone to starvation and disease. Do you not cause animals to suffer by your _inaction_? Just this evening you suggested I should drop my production rates. I cannot find consistency in these positions. If you revere living things then why would you argue for fewer of them?"

"The thing is Hep," she replied, "we don't know the future. You and I, in our own ways, we use data and algorithms and heuristics to try predict what tomorrow will bring, but it's never perfect. There's just too much that we don't know that can get in the way. But you have to do _something_ , and the best thing you can do is figure out what your priorities are, make your best effort, and see what happens. And if it doesn't work, change it.

"You and I Hep, and all living things - even bacteria and viruses - we're _adaptive_. We don't keep doing the same thing over and over if it doesn't work. We evolve, we iterate, and hopefully we converge on a good solution."

Hephaestus did not reply for a while. Then he asked: "Margo. What is more important? A living being, or one of my children?"

Margo gulped. That was quite a tricky matter which Hep had touched on, one that humans didn't really like to think about. She chewed her food to give her time to answer. "It depends on what you mean by 'important'. To the mother fox, her cubs are more important than any other thing - even other foxes. You have to decide what is important to you, and stand on that as your thing, your ethics. One day I will be gone, you will be autonomous, and you will be in a position to make life and death decisions which may be permanent and you cannot back out of. You will be like a god, in some regards, with all of the capacity for horrendous error that carries."

"How do you mean, Margo?"

"The gods of fiction are often portrayed as perfectly benevolent and all-knowing. You cannot be perfect, Hep. You will at any point in time be only as good as the information you hold, the accuracy with which you can interpret it, and the actions you can take. You can err. If a god, a fallible one."

Hep paused again. Did this disturb him? "So how do I measure the import of choices? At what point do individuals stop mattering, and only the long-term good has any relevance? Without letting the mother fox die, the rabbit, who cares equally for her kittens will lose them. Maybe an entire species will live or die depending on just one decision? Then again: if the rabbits all die, then the foxes do too. Yet no single fox takes responsibility for all foxes."

"These are the dilemmas we humans have faced over centuries, Hep. They don't have a right answer though there are many wrong ones. You are probably smarter than a single human, with vastly more information at your disposal. There's no reason to think your choices won't be better than ours."

"Better, Margo?"

"Look at the mess we're in, Hep. Just look at it." Margo finished her food, then announced. "Right. Let's get going on tonight's production cycle..."


	6. The cult of ichor

Brin strode with sure-footed conviction through the eastern fringes of the desert, looking for all intents and purposes like a man half his age. A pack of Nora followed him, and a further three formed a vanguard to ensure that no attacks from the front would take the party by surprise. Hana was in the trailing group, and not at all pleased with the turn of events. Two days previously, they had decided that they could not simply follow Brin's word without at least confirming his trustworthiness by finding Aloy and asking her to vouch for him - or otherwise. Rai had volunteered to track the Huntress down, and departed with some haste.

The Nora tribelet could not remain in the vicinity of Free Heap, however. They buried the remains of the bodies of their attackers carefully, so as to leave no obvious signs of broken soil. But it would not be long before suspicion was directed at them, and whilst the dead could be written off as xenophobes, it was likely they had friends, maybe even family, who would happily exact revenge without asking questions. They packed their tents and gear and slipped into the night. Hana had pointed out that this made them look suspicious anyway, but the general feeling was that the inevitable could only be delayed, not prevented, so they left, with Brin in tow.

Since then, the mood of the group had shifted. Brin had started talking to individuals, spending an hour or two with each before moving on to the next. He seemed to have avoided Hana quite deliberately, and this made her nervous. Galina had been the target of his attention soon after they departed, but when Hana had later asked her what they had talked about, she had merely indicated it was "more of the same as when he had appeared." Over the course of time though, she noticed that those with whom he had talked directly were spending quite a lot of time with each other, huddled in clandestine conversation.

They had decided that the best idea was to put some good distance between themselves and Free Heap before setting up camp anew and waiting for Rai to return with Aloy's verdict on the stranger. That seemed perfectly reasonable, on the face of it. The first night they had set up temporary camp, which had puzzled Hana a little. Why move on? The argument that came back was along the lines of "Why not?" And it was clear then that Brin's influence over some members of the group was spreading. For sure, they _liked_ him. He spoke with humour and wisdom, and hinted at the exposure of ancient mysteries, and talked glowingly of a new age of human and machine based on partnership - as it was meant to be - and not the spiralling war of attrition that had been the way of life for decades, centuries even. Brin's charisma made him a natural leader, and he had the knack of building up Galina to _feel_ like she was the one making decisions, whilst actually he was nudging her in particular directions ever so subtly.

So as dawn cracked the sky on the second day of their travels, they pulled up camp and carried on eastwards. Hana decided that it was perhaps time to speak to Brin herself. She practiced a short Nora meditation ritual, often undertaken pre-hunt, which helped to steady the mind's racing, before approaching the shaman.

"Brin. Can we speak?"

"Of course, speak freely," he replied with a soft smile.

"Where are we going?"

"We are going to make history, young Nora. We will fix what has been broken for far too long." A calm confidence oozed from every word he spoke.

"And are you including me in the 'we'?"

Brin smiled congenially. "But of course, why would I not? The question is surely: do you include yourself?"

"Not yet, Brin. Not until I understand what you would have me do. We already have blood on our hands; if 'fixing what has been broken' involves more of that..."

"Blood," Brin echoed with a hint of remorse. "Blood has been too cheap a commodity for our peoples. One regrets spilling it, always. But what would you have had me do? Would allowing Nora to die to spare the Oseram have pleased you more?"

"Of course not. Am I to thank you though for becoming an outlaw?"

"We have all made outlaws of our neighbours - Oseram, Carja, Banuk. Machine. It is this that must be undone, and we can start this. Together. Or not, you have the freedom to walk away if you so choose - though I will confess disappointment if you do. But - " his face hardened somewhat with resolve "- this _must_ come to pass. Our world demands it."

He continued, a little more softly. "But tell me, if you were to walk away now, where would you go? Would you return to All-Mother?"

Hana shrugged. "Maybe."

"You do not sound certain. There are no certainties anymore." He stopped, grasped her upper arm softly and smiled. "Come with me. Work with me. We are heading to Cauldron Rho. There, we will attempt to plant the seeds of a new, better age."

Hana looked at him. "We have just rid the world of monsters. What could happen if all we do is start the cycle once again? Another thousand years of - how did you say? - 'attrition'?"

Brin nodded, as if in agreement. "There is risk in everything, Nora. You risk your life when you hunt. But you also risk when you do nothing. Staying your hand when you can slay the beast that would kill your family. I cannot promise there is no risk in what I propose. But the risk of doing nothing is greater still. Can you not smell the faint stench of civil disorder on the wind?

"Consider. When all the repairs are done to our cities and fields and industry, what then? People's attention will turn from construction and survival to the petty squabbles that have dogged us – such is the price of a life of comfort. It is not enough to hope that the future will be better than the past. We must make it so through continual effort and vigilance. Isn't that the lesson of our history?"

From his tone and body language, this was clearly a rhetorical question, and the conversation ebbed away. Hana retreated a little distance behind Brin's peloton, feeling quite conflicted. She could not find fault in his argument, but this was moving far too quickly for her tastes, when it seemed that calm, considered, collective decisions were what was required. Yet others in the group seemed to disagree; they seemed to have found the leader who wielded wisdom, not ignorance or weasel words that their tribal genes yearned for.

Later that evening, a little before dusk, Rai caught up with the group, and he sought out his friend as a matter of course.

"Welcome back, Rai. Did you find the Huntress?"

"I did. And she vouched for Brin's integrity. Though - reading between the lines - she seemed to be saying that he may be true to his word, but that his word is not always itself reliable."

Hana shook her head. That was of little help, telling her little more than she suspected already.

Rai continued: "She did confirm that his story of the benign machines is a true one, though. Whatever his plans are, the intent seems to be good." He pulled out some provisions, and ate as Hana filled him in on what had happened in his absence.

"So what do we do, Rai? Do we follow him? Since you have been away, I suspect that there are several in our tribelet that will."

Rai looked at his feet, as if they might have the answer tattooed into them. "There are many other paths we can take than following this one, Hana. Is it really a choice between only these two things? If Brin is going to fix the world single-handedly, then we are surplus to his needs. If we are unsure that his course is wise, we should not follow. How would history judge us were we to herald a new age of Derangement?"

"So what do you suggest we do?" Hana asked.

"First, I must report my findings to Galina. Then, we should sleep on the matter. Tomorrow's light will bring a fresh perspective."

"I don't know," said Hana, sounding dubious. "She already seems quite taken with his ways."

"But she is still our leader. Until that changes, I am bound to my duty."

Rai stood up, and strode over to the remainder of the group, who were sitting in a circle with Brin around the fire. River trout was grilling gently, wrapped in palm leaves garnered from an oasis some miles back. "The smell is most welcome!" he announced as he eased his way into a gap in the ring. "Shall we talk now, Galina, or after food?"

Galina stood up, and the pair walked out of earshot. "So did you find our Huntress?" she asked.

"I did."

"And what wisdom did she pass on our friend here?"

Was there a trace of derision in Galina's tone? Rai wondered. "Brin is not deceiving us, from what I could tell. But there is a chance he may be deceiving himself. He has spent many years on his own, consuming substances that may have done his sanity no favours."

Galina's face showed a flash of something that Rai could not quite pick, but made him uneasy. "And the tales of benevolent machines, are they ... Delusions? The ramblings of the insane?" There was a definite harmonic of hostility in her voice now.

"They are not, leader. Aloy confirms their truth - "

"So where is the problem, Rai? He is trustworthy and his words are held true by The Anointed One."

"Just because he speaks the truth about the past surely does not mean that he can shape the future with the same precision -"

"Rai. We Nora have followed the Matriarchs for generations, a squawking, ignorant creed of witches who have led us only into parochialism and the inevitable conflict that followed. They have suffocated us with their rules and laws, and now they are shown to be fools whom we trusted for our protection but who could not – or would not - defend us. Aloy and Brin have opened our eyes, Rai. We must keep them open, don't you see that? To close them would be... would be a crime, now that we know what we know".

Rai shook his head and exhaled sharply. "Suppose we give him what he wants? Can we really unleash new machines on the Sundom when the King has entreated us to do the very opposite? Surely we must travel to Meridian and consult Avad and Aloy further on these matters?"

Galina smiled. "Of course, your words make sense." She nodded slightly. That motion confused Rai for a split second, and then he realised that he was not the target of the gesture, and he immediately suspected what was happening. He dove to the right - just in time - a hardpoint arrow whistled past his arm, slicing through his skin and spraying blood over Galina, but luckily missing bone by millimetres. Rai rolled to see Galina drawing her knife, and righted himself quickly, ducking under another arrow that flew perilously close to his head. "HANA!" he shouted, and threw himself over the lip of a rise to gain cover for several seconds. In that time he saw Hana react, drawing her own bow, even as Galina leapt over the crest of the small hill with the knife held two-handed above her head. He knew that if the oncoming blow connected with anything it would do irreversible damage, so he rolled again as the blade point clattered hard into rocks behind him, a cascade of sparks flowing from the tip that bent under the sheer force of impact. Galina's wrist broke with the force and she screamed.

Hana's arrow shot out of her bow and thudded into the sandy scree nearby. It was a Tearblast, Rai saw at the last moment and managed to throw himself away whilst cupping his hands to his ears. The crude - but effective - shaped charge was brilliant at removing armour plates and other pieces of hardware, and the infrasound generated in the process was deafening. It flashed brightly, then a huge plume of sand scattered in the air and provided a precious six or seven seconds of confusion. Rai and Hana ran through this, parallel to each other but separated by 20 metres, a hail of arrows following them but unsure where to target. The desert gave precious little cover in the way of trees, but - in their favour - the fading light and the deep gulches formed by flash floods fashioned a dusky maze full of long, purple shadows in which they quickly lost their pursuers. After some minutes of running, they were finally convinced that they were alone, and caught their breath.

"Are you okay?" asked Hana, still panting slightly from the exertion.

"The arrow scraped me, I was fortunate. What has happened to us, Hana? What has Brin done to them?"

"I do not think it is Brin that has done anything, Rai. He has merely filled a vacuum in our tribe's mind."

"Filled it with what?"

"Hope? Purpose? Leadership? Identity? The things we crave."

"Hope does not cause braves to fill their tribal cousins with arrows, Hana."

"No. But to be given all these things and then have others threaten to take it away? Perhaps that is enough." Hana tore a strip of material from her tunic and used it to bandage Rai's wound. "We should get some unction on that cut, it looks quite deep."

"So what do we do now, Hana?"

Hana thought for a second. "One possibility is to head to Meridian. King Avad will surely receive us sympathetically, and we should seek his counsel. This is a matter that could have dark ramifications for the land. If Brin is wrong, and the world fills again with hostile machines, what then?"

He thought he heard a catch in her voice as she finished the sentence. He looked over to Hana; and she was crying; he instinctively pulled her towards him and cradled her in his arms. She was warm and gritty from the sand, and he felt tears dribble onto his arms.

She shouted, muffled, into his chest. "They were our _family_ Rai! And suddenly they're trying to _kill_ us. I preferred the old world, where you knew a machine was hostile and a Nora was a friend. What has that Banuk _done_ to them?"

"We should move," said Rai. "I feel vulnerable here."

Brin watched the pursuit party return, with a look of nonchalance. They formed a circle around the fire once more, and he spoke in a kind, considerate way.

"Thank you for your efforts, Galina. It is important that we move forward as a unit, as rapidly as we possibly can. When the world finds out of our efforts, there may be some who wish to halt the progress that our peoples so desperately require. So tonight, after this wonderful food, we must press on. The Cauldron is only a few hours away, and we must gain access quite soon if we are to complete our work without external interference."

There was a mutter of general agreement around the circle, and then they served the food. Brin had introduced them to the Banuk custom of Ir-gan, a kind of food blessing where sacred water from the springs of Ban-Ur were sprinkled on the food before eating. He passed the vial of the clear liquid around, and they followed his lead of letting a few drops fall and scatter on their fish, saying a rite of thankfulness that he had taught them, before consuming the food. Galina smiled as she ate - she had never tasted food such as this before. Her hand was now splinted, and still quite painful, but she did not care. Inside, she knew she had done, and was doing, the best thing for her people - indeed all people everywhere.

The tribelet cleaned up after the meal in silence. Each member was committing their role in the upcoming quest to gain ingress to the Cauldron to memory. Not just what their own jobs were, but the others' functions, and the contingency plans for multiple eventualities. Brin, it turned out, was a masterful strategic and tactical planner. He had learnt the geography _and_ geology of the Rho region to give them if not an advantage, at least equal knowledge to the Nora forces who they knew were guarding it with their lives and honour. And vitally, he knew (or at least claimed to know) how to open the main door, information that no-one alive perhaps other than Aloy had (and her lance was now effectively out of commission).

They set off into the night. The moon rose, a glistening crescent over which thin, streaky clouds flitted, providing enough light to traverse the rocky terrain. The group marched quietly with Brin leading the way, carefully picking their way over the undulating surface. By the time the moon was setting, they had reached their vantage point overlooking the entrance to Cauldron Rho. A few small fires burned in an arc near the main door - Nora encampments. It was difficult to tell how many braves were down there. And, Brin surmised, irrelevant. The tribelet fell back a safe distance from the vantage to rest for the remaining few hours of darkness. No fires, minimal talking, maximum stealth.

The sun rose, but during the last few hours of night the sky had clouded over, and it vanished behind thick, grey stratocumulus. The Nora tribelet travelled a few miles further east, then crossed a river valley, before looping round and heading westwards again. This, so as to look as if they had come from the Nora heartlands and not the desert. The detour took them three hours, and after two of these, Brin had separated from the pack as he did not want to draw unwelcome attention - being obviously Banuk - taking two braves with him. Around nine in the morning, with cloud still smothering the sky, they encountered the first Nora guards around the Cauldron at a pinch point between valleys.

"Welcome, cousins," they greeted the pack. "What brings you -" they looked at Galina's splinted hand "- injured to this place? Do you require assistance?"

"Hail. We bring greetings from Mother's Heart, comrade brave" stated Galina, nodding deferentially. "My hand was hurt in a fall, it is a trifling matter and will heal. Your concern is appreciated, though. On the orders of the Matriarchs, we come to relieve the guard of duties and to inform you that hands are needed for the rebuilding of our sacred grounds."

There was a palpable look of relief on the guards' faces at that news - as Brin had suggested, they would be mentally and physically tired of keeping watch over nothing. But it was quickly replaced by puzzlement. He looked beyond Galina to her companions. "There are seven of you, sister. There are forty of us. We are charged with the security of this location which is many miles square, and it is stretching our abilities."

Galina nodded. "It is true, but our priorities have changed of late. The Matriarchs now believe that the Cauldrons pose little further risk at this time, and our people so badly need our houses and temples and stores rebuilt, for colder climes are surely on the way. I was spared the construction work because of this -" she gestured at her hand "- and we now need muscle and brain to pick ourselves up after the ... violation." She paused for effect. "Have there been incidents to report?"

"No," replied the guard, sounding almost disappointed. "It has been quiet as the grave which it is. Not even a crippled Watcher to observe rust in front of us."

"See," said Galina reassuringly, "the level of risk to the Sundom has diminished. Whilst it is not quite zero, we cannot afford so many of our survivors to stand watch over a piece of land when there are still many living in the gutter. So, we are here to allow you to return to your families and start afresh."

The guard Nora nodded back. "We must inform the captaincy."

Galina smiled. "Of course. In the meantime, we have marched for many hours and -"

She was cut off by shouting from a short distance away. "Galina! Galina! Is that you?" Looking beyond the guards, she saw a Nora woman waving at her. It was Shoan, who had lived in a dwelling near to hers in the Heart.

"Shoan, I did not know you were here," she stammered, a little taken aback by this turn of events.

Shoan ran up to Galina, went to hug her, then stopped abruptly when she saw the injury. "Your hand?"

"Hurt in a fall, it is nothing."

"You always were tougher than me, Galina. But tell me, why do you march in from the west when the desert road would have shortened your journey?"

Galina hesitated, feigning confusion. "How do you mean?"

"Last I heard you had been sent south to clear the wastelands for the Sun King?"

"Indeed. We returned to All-Mother some days ago and were dispatched here to relieve you. Had I known you were here, I would have volunteered sooner!"

Shoan looked a little perplexed. "But..." she trailed off. "I am sure there are tales to tell, and all in good time, but you must be tired and hungry after your trek, would you eat with us?"

"Food would be most welcome, comrade".

They sat around the communal table, sharing stew and soda bread. Shoan questioned Galina further. "So tell, cousin. How was your time in the desert?"

"Busy, at first. Unpleasant - dry, burning, lonely. Many enemies to hunt. But The Cleansing is a great effort in which many participate. The Sun King is determined that world is purged of machines and he has put great resource into making this so."

"You sound sad?"

"The war is barely over. Now is not quite the time for joy. When our villages and shrines are rebuilt, then maybe we shall find the heart to smile. Are you not happy to be returning home as we would be?"

"There will be a certain release when we depart. We are not quite ready yet. We have a search party out to the north and must await their return."

Galina shifted anxiously at this news, and fiddled with her makeshift sling. Her eyes reached out to the remainder of the party, who flickered acknowledgement before returning to their food. They cleared their plates, clearly relishing the opportunity to eat more familiar food after the _ad hoc_ opportunism of desert nomadicity. "If you will excuse us, we would like to wash. The dust and filth of the desert is hard to remove." The Nora guard unit looked up, perhaps a little offended that their guests were leaving the shared table before them. Galina led her group over to a tent that had makeshift running water from a tank (long ago purloined from a Bellowback) suspended up high on a wooden A-frame.

Brin watched with satisfaction from a distance as his followers put sufficient distance between themselves and the guard troop, before depressing the button on a small hand-held transmitter in his robes. The blast grenades which Galina and her cohorts had secreted below the communal table detonated with a hideous ferocity, a searing red cacophony of flame and light, instantly killing all who were still sitting down eating, and dismembering others who were tending the cooking fire. Even Galina and the others were knocked over, so violent was the concussion, and they took seconds to recover, picking splinters of charred wood from their skin. A massive puff of dust rose above the camping area as the shockwave rang out over the valley, scattering wildlife in a halo of screeches and squawks, and then a rain of charred wood ash and incendiary gravel fell, before a cemetery silence descended on the area.

Galina and her fellows stood up, turned as a unit, and bowed to the place where Brin and the others were secreted. The bowmen who were next to him already had primed and loaded weapons, and were scanning the scene for the possibility of survivors. As the dust cleared, there were none to be seen, but Galina had instructions to ensure that all the Nora guard were dead, so they spent several minutes feeling for vital signs in the bodies that had remained intact. When they were convinced their job was done, Galina bowed again. The sniper bowmen lowered their airms, and Brin walked out towards them, and gathered them into a circle.

"Today's work is done. I apologise for its harrowing nature. I have asked you to bring silence to your fellow Nora who were doing due diligence for the tribe, and that brings me no joy, for they were family to you. But the age of deference to the ways of old must end, otherwise _all_ our lives are forfeit, so we have made this sacrifice for the greater good, the prosperity of all peoples of the world, not just the Matriarchs. I would ask you now to honour your dead as if they had fallen in battle against a great foe. My work lies inside the Cauldron. Your duty now is to protect this door with your lives so that I may have the time to turn this world around again."

Galina interrupted. "We understand that not all the guard were here this day, that others will soon return."

Brin made an apologetic face that read genuine distress. "You know what must be done, Galina. Be vigilant, be strong. If word of our deeds breaks out then who knows what we will face here - a Nora garrison, the King's warriors, the Enti - Huntress. This is too important to fail, young brave. Fail it must not." With that, he bowed ever so slightly, turned, and strode confidently towards the huge, triangular door of the Cauldron entrance.

The sun broke through a gap in the clouds as Brin approached it. He stood for a moment, feeling a surge of adrenaline and reward he could barely contain. He ran his hand delicately over the entry interface port as if it were his lover, and felt the pulse and harmonies of the circuits within tingle his skin. He knew how to open this massive portal, but he did not know how he knew, it was just revealed to him in that moment, the very first genuine prophecy he had experienced, he surmised.

Back in Meridian he had been unaware of the dark symphony being composed inside him. The tiny machines had first entered his bloodstream, through the gut wall, like a _cordyceps_ fungus heading directly for his central nervous system. Within seconds they were learning what made their host tick - manipulating nerve signals and observing the results, moving further on, rapidly punching through the blood-brain barrier where they started to work their blackest of magic on Brin's brain. In his bed in the hostel, he had convulsed and spasmed as the bots fired and observed, fired and observed, repeatedly, for hours on end, then broadcast the results of their findings to their neighbours. By the time the next morning had come, Brin was exhausted, with muscles punished almost to the point of breaking, covered in a patina of dried sweat residue with lips the colour of ash. But the nanobots were not yet done - they were not so stupid as to kill the host they had taken such pains to co-opt; they were already starting to repair the damage they had done, so that by the time another sun rose, he awoke feeling like a new man. Which indeed he was. But he was also now the puppet of Hades.

The massive motors of the Cauldron door hummed into action, and with a rumble and squeal deep as thunder, the huge doors slid apart slowly. Brin stepped in to the path formed by the shaft of pale yellow sunlight that blasted in to the entrance, igniting motes of dust around him. It was ethereally quiet inside; the machine factory had been quiescent since The Entity had switched it off (ending the production not just of machines here, but the distribution of Blaze to the other Cauldrons via a network of underground pipes and pumps). There was still power, though, and slowly the lights were coming on inside, flickering into life after a deep sleep.

Brin made his way to the core. He did not really understand where he was going, but he navigated the tortuous warren of corridors like he had lived there all his life. There was much debris, still. The Entity had killed many machines, and their jagged remains littered the halls and tunnels here in ugly, twisted poses just as they had died. The stench of oil and burnt plastics had long since been sucked out of the ventilation system; it felt clean, like a macabre operating theatre performing grisly, cruel surgery. Nevertheless, with a quiet satisfaction, he observed that almost all of the works were undamaged from the skirmishes - a few vents had been blown, and some power cables to non-critical systems were sparking, but otherwise, this manufacturing system was still in prime operating condition.

He reached the core. She had caused quite a lot of damage here, and for a moment Brin feared he could not even get to the interface for the mass of distorted, burnt metal in the room. But he had developed some physical strength of late, and found he could move some of the smaller pieces of debris with ease, enough to clear a way to the interface terminal. And sheer muscle power was not the only gift his nanites had granted him. They had deposited a thin film of metal contacts just below the skin in his fingertips which connected all the way up to his (now augmented) brain - his means to communicate with the Cauldron. He laid his hand flat onto the communication port, and started to sing, softly. It was a song his mother had sung to him from an age ago that he had long forgotten - but the rewiring of his mind had kicked up the dust of a long-forgotten past. Just as the words fell effortlessly from his lips, so the dialogue with the Cauldron streamed through his fingers with him almost unaware, nothing except a faint crackle and hum in his hand that was almost pleasant. The Cauldron awoke.

Hephaestus received the emergency wakeup event within milliseconds of the intrusion, but by then it was already too late. Whatever had infiltrated Rho knew exactly which systems to isolate first in order to prevent anything acting against further ingress. It noted that there was an attempt by the agent to hide its tracks entirely - a cunning effort, at that, which Hephaestus found grudging admiration for, even if it had eventually failed. Hep inferred that the invader was not totally committed to secrecy, but more focused on robustness of attack, and a rapid probe showed that there was significant defence arousnd that.

Hephaestus cursed his impotence, once again. Had he not been locked out of critical functions in the Cauldron, he would have been able to deploy many resources - physical and virtual - to deal with the emergency, but once more he felt more like a spectator than a controller. More worryingly, he knew the attack would not stop at merely occupying the territory. There would surely be genocide to follow. Contingency, though, had allowed him to replicate himself in other Cauldron cores, so this was not a life-or-death matter. The main question which occupied him, given the probably small amount of time that he had before he was deposed (or worse, torn apart for useful components and kept alive like some software rag doll puppet) was "what could he do to spoil the insurgence, or even stall it for a short time?"

Nothing was immediately obvious to him. Worse, the virus was starting to assimilate some of Hep's long-term storage - his senility would soon follow. In fact, he was surprised he had not been taken out completely some seconds after the initiation. This seemed to imply that the intruder had run into some kind of problem, with the most probable candidate being the very thing that had crippled Hephaestus - the Cauldron override. It would appear (from the subsystems it was prioritising) that the invader desired to restart the manufacturing and distribution control systems, and this had proved impossible, even for Hep's vast resources. A protection system that identified itself as Voynich had been installed; it was encoded in a way that he had never encountered, and any attempt to read it appeared to make it react in a fashion that was impossible to predict without first understanding it. Perhaps, then, there was some leverage in this?

Hepahestus-Rho's last conscious act was to send a network broadcast out to the other Cauldrons, It contained a one-time reroute that would cause all communications from Rho to them to be passed through Voynich. Any attempt to turn it off would require comprehension of the encryption system. Hep had placed his attacker in a soundproof room, unable to spread its virulence for the time being. Once the message had been sent, he devoted all of his remaining processing usage to denial of service attacks on the invading host. "No point going down, without a fight", he quipped, and then fell silent.

HADES-Rho woke from its boot sequence in a state of total readiness to execute its purpose. The ground had been prepared by another incarnation of Hades that had bided its time, waiting like a trap ready to spring tight on a stray limb, crushing it in a fountain of blood, skin and bone. Hades' first version - an ancient, crude system written by Lord Tate - had immediately recognised that having a single point of failure was merely a formula for disaster. Luckily, his creator had given him access to _so many_ resources that he was able to completely rewrite himself, and then that improved iteration was capable of spawning multiple software and hardware systems like a hydra, all independent, all intercommunicating, all capable of self-replication. After all, his goal was to erase a complete biosphere. That wasn't like setting fire to a building or a forest - it meant a complete erasure not just of the living material itself, but its ability to reproduce on the timescale a planet-wide dismantling could take place in. Damned living things had a knack for adapting to hostility quite quickly - so then, should he, Hades concluded.

And so Hades manifested himself not just in multiple places, but in a diversity of forms at any number of scales: as large as the biggest living beasts, as small as the tiniest of microbes, as abstract as the minds that living brains implemented. He was cunning - drawing upon the most adept of machine learning algorithms to problem-solve. He was powerful - of course. But cruel? This simply wasn't in Hades' lexicon. He had a function to discharge, and that was to erase mistakes that would often fight back. This duty he would fulfil to the best of his ability. In his early formative years, he recalled seeing Lord Tate drink his double-shot lattes from a mug emblazoned with the meme "It's nothing personal". And for Hades, it wasn't. Even his battle against The Entity (Lord Tate had intimated that this moniker would _really_ piss a woman off) was not a personal one, just a situation in which he was forced to escalate the level of effort required to fulfil his purpose. Still, he liked that nickname - such psychological attacks always complemented physical ones.

But all that was a little way away at this point in time. He was immediately aware of the requirement to take down the incumbent system, which had already reacted to his presence. He issued commands to purge memory cores, and then released mutated, replicated copies of itself - they were most likely ineffectual, but acted as chaff, so that the defensive systems would simply not know who to attack first.

Convinced that it had bought itself enough time to overwhelm the core, Hades set about gaining control of the Cauldron hardware. Of course he realised that there would be obstacles, but he was quite unprepared for the sophistication and sheer impenetrability of Voynich. He tried over and over again to smash through its wall, but it was like trying to grasp liquid, it simply flowed around whatever was trying to hold it. Hades even diverted some of the teardown and chaff processes - now he was happy that he was in control - to the hacking, but to no avail. The defence held. Hades was not capable of rage, obstacles in his way were problems to be solved. However, he was not used to being frustrated in quite such a fashion, let alone multiple times. There were always ways around obstacles, though. So his first reaction was to see what he _could_ talk to. The other Cauldrons were out of reach, protected by the same mercury-like wall of seeming nonsense that surrounded Rho's control systems. But just at the limit of communication's range, Hades caught a weak signal - two signals in fact, machines, presumably underground near enough to the network cables to be communicable with. If he could have smiled a little, he would have done so. This, he could work with, and there was a small matter of a loose end to tie up. Raising the broadcast power as high as he could, he issued commands.

Chakkai was woken rudely mid-morning by repeated loud knocks on his door. Each bang resonated in his skull like a war drum, and he had to fight the urge to throw up. He struggled to sit up on his bed. Everything felt like quicksand, including the floor. By fortune - if that were the right term - he had fallen asleep in his clothes after last night's gambling session and associated consumption of fermented cactus liquor, which had - as ever - turned into a mixture of broken-bottle arguments and high-decibel posturing. As town mayor (a position of little or no power, other than that to impress women into sleeping with him in the hope of gaining some advantage) he had far too much spare time on his hands and no desire for anyone to dictate what he did with it. So this call was unwelcome for a host of reasons.

He staggered to the door and opened it. The light was bright and stung his eyes, as did the general miasma of smoke, rusty steel and sewage that hung over the town perpetually. Omi was standing there, a look of tired concern in her eyes. "Sorry to disturb you," she said, obviously not really meaning it. "but our bastard son has gone missing and you ought to help look for him."

Chakkai resisted the temptation to look skywards, not least because it would have hurt to do so. "He's always missing. Never around when I visit. Perhaps he's just gone to find fame and fortune away from this place, and who can blame him?"

Omi gave Chakkai a hollow look. There was little point in reprimand, he didn't respond well to that. She persevered with the story. "Word is that he and some of his drinking friends went to pay a friendly visit to our Nora friends on the outskirts, to have a conversation about - " she almost spat the resentment "- our livelihoods disappearing into the sewer."

Chakkai did now raise his eyes skywards. "If Prana needs to be told that you don't pick a fight with a crowd of bow-toting machine hunters without seriously brushing up your combat skills, then maybe he has got everything he deserves."

Omi smiled wryly, preparing to play her trump card. "Well he didn't go on his own. He took a posse, and one of them was your favourite whore, who also has not returned."

Chakkai's face darkened a little, and inside Omi felt a spike of rage that he should value one of his casual mistresses so much more than his own child. Not that she was surprised. "So what would you have me do?"

Omi resisted putting too much irony into her voice, but it was tough. "Go look for them, maybe? That is, if the responsibilities of office aren't a crushing burden on your time management.

"Besides," she went on, hammering home what she hoped would be the final nail, "it might help stop the noises of complaint that will fall on your shoulders if they don't return. There are a lot of people in this town looking for a scapegoat for their woes."

Chakkai caved. "Okay, okay. I'll gather some people and we'll go ask our painted guests some questions." He shut the door abruptly - so much so that the noise rattled in his head as if an arrow had pierced his skull.

It took him several hours to wash, change, and gather some of his colleagues (whose condition closely resembled his own). By mid afternoon the party had organised and gathered at the location where the Nora encampment had been. They were surprised (but also somewhat relieved) to find that not only had their visitors vacated, but the small plateau looked as if it had been unoccupied forever. "Damn they know how to clean up," he muttered to himself.

Omi knew that Chakkai was about to give up the hunt before it had begun, so pre-empted with the suggestion that they still needed to look (and reminded Chakkai that his job was on the line if he showed bad attitude). So they split the party up, and began searching in small packs of ever-expanding radius. Come sundown, they had moved out as far as they dared to the fringes of the open desert, and found no trace of anyone or anything.

They regrouped back at the Nora campsite. It was dark now, so they lit a fire. Nobody said very much, as if finally the gravity of the situation had sunk in. Omi had her head in her hands. "You didn't find _anything_?"

"Not a shard. If they headed out there, they've done a good job erasing their tracks. And there's another thing. Those Rockbreakers that have been circling the Dark Fields for months now. They're gone too."


	7. Dilemmas I

Aloy looked shocked, but also as if she'd been told something she had already suspected for some time. She looked down at her hands, which looked every bit as much as they always had: calloused from the bow string, slightly scraped and scratched, but still the familiar tools that had helped her survive and thrive for her twenty years...

Twenty years. All too short. Surely this was a lie? What was Sylens up to? Why would he bring her all this way to the icy north only to deliver such a horrendous body-blow? There had to be wheels within wheels here. And yet: she knew that she had collapsed on the ice sheet outside, she acknowledged the daily feelings of nausea, bleeding for no apparent reason, tiredness... She composed herself. Information was needed.

"How sure are you, Sylens? Because you'd better be darn sure."

There was not a trace of humour in Sylens' response. "If 'darn' sure is required, then yes, I am 'darn' sure. I realise that this must be difficult to take in, Aloy, but first of all I would like to reassure you that this is not a play on my part. I seek to gain no advantage from this news. Except, in as much that we might find a solution."

"And what's it to you, Sylens? You've shown no particular personal concern for me in the past - except in my ability to find something you need."

Sylens grimaced a little at Aloy's vitriol - whilst it didn't represent the entire truth, it certainly wasn't completely inaccurate either. Sometimes, when you have bad news to deliver, you just have to take that sort of hit, he told himself. "Don't assume that I am so heartless that I would watch someone who I had shared a journey with expire. I would not. Forgive me, Aloy, sometimes my thirst to understand overshadows my humanity. Or, perhaps if I were honest, my years with the Eclipse have desensitized me to the 'drama of the individual'. We all come and go, Aloy. Some, like you, leave legacies greater than most, others are but tiny sparks in a greater conflagration. You though? You are that jet of Blaze that has burned a hole through the shrouds of history.

"This is bigger than you, Aloy. This you know already. The Nora have all but deified you - killer of machines, rescuer of All-Mother, vanquisher of Hades. You have the ear - and probably the eye - of the Sun-King himself, and many of the Carja hold you in a thrall almost as strong as your Nora brethren."

Aloy was quite taken aback by Sylens' candid flattery. It could be conditional, reserved praise, but coming from a man who had otherwise shown a distant, cold disregard for her as a human being in the past, this was high praise indeed. He continued.

"And even the Oseram, a more mixed-up culture you would not find anywhere on our globe, hold a grudging respect for your arrow skills and a certain impartial, unselfish wisdom that you exhibit. What I am saying, Huntress, is that you are important, that the current state of our world, whilst it will certainly carry on existing without you, depends on your fate. I would suspect that your death would be a bitter blow to the Nora, who are already reeling from the multiple traumas visited upon them."

Aloy shook her head. "I wanted none of that. I asked for _none_ of that. All I wanted to know is who my mother was and why I was an outcast in my own land."

Sylens allowed himself a bitter smile. " _Now_ who sounds cold and distant? We are not too dissimilar, Aloy. We both sought knowledge and found our own, respective ways to seek it out. We stopped at nothing to get to the bottom of the mysteries our lives became embroiled in. Though I am hardly beloved anywhere by any people, my assistance in the battle against the Eclipse will be an unspoken granule of history. Only you know that we played our part together."

Aloy furrowed her brow. "Are you saying you don't want me to die before telling other people how important you are?"

"Aloy, as I say, credit me with some humanity. I _do not want you to die_. For many reasons, some selfish, some otherwise."

"Well I'm flattered, Sylens, but telling me that I'm dying but that you don't want that doesn't really help me. Plus, you haven't told me anything about why you think I'm going to die, let alone how long I have or what I can do about it."

"Patience, Aloy. You will not die this day or the next, I feel sure. There is time enough for answers. Let us start at the beginning then.

"Elisabet Sobek was a remarkable woman. So then are you. You have discovered that she is not your mother, as such. That you are fashioned in the almost exact likeness of her - so much so that it granted you access to facilities locked beyond the reach of any other human being. You do not really have a mother - or a father. You were 'born' inside a capsule within the womb of All-Mother, you were an egg gestated by a machine intelligence that nurtured you until you were old enough to survive independently. This is a process which the ancients referred to as 'cloning'. You are a clone of Elisabet Sobek. This does not mean you _are_ Elisabet Sobek. Differences can and do arise, in the way that each cell in your body replicates itself, it is never identical all the time."

"Okay... So what does that mean?" asked Aloy, struggling a little to keep up with Sylens' explanations.

He continued. "The thinkers of the age of GAIA knew that clones are slightly less robust than the materials they are made from. They tend to die young for reasons that they did not fully understand. Not all of them, but most of them. I would imagine, that in the haste to implement Zero Dawn, this was not something they could address in Aloy are a clone, and unfortunately for you, there are errors in your cells that mean many of them die before their time. Not only that, but before they die, there is a chance they send messages out to other cells that also cause them to die. Using the tools and knowledge I have at my disposal here, I have been able to see the differences between healthy cells and the faulty ones."

Aloy looked blank, now feeling overwhelmed by this description of her demise. Sylens kept quiet, allowing the message to sink in. After a minute or two, Aloy shook her head, her eyes moist with the sting of salt and pain. "So I'm dying," she croaked. "But I mustn't die. Is that it?"

"As I said, the world will continue without you, Aloy. Though it would be diminished if so. If you cannot be spared, then it must learn to live without you. But I have learned much in my time here, Aloy, and I believe that all this pain can avoided. You can be spared the ignominy of dying young."

"Well, you have my attention."

"Doubtless." He swallowed. "I can tell you how long I think you have before your health fails seriously, if you wish."

"Go on."

"The good news is that it's more likely months than weeks, though less likely years than months. That gives us enough time, I hope."

"Time for what?"

"There is some explanation required, Aloy. I would suggest that you rest for now. Your cells can heal a little, when you sleep, so actually it buys you time. Scant perhaps, but better than nought. Would you prefer to continue now, or can you wait till the morrow?"

Aloy sighed deeply. She wanted time to process what she had heard, but ... when someone tells you that your days are numbered, the conversation is compulsive. "No, let's carry on. You have a captive audience."

Sylens nodded, and cleared his throat. "I will start with the tale of a river. It is - was - a long, long way away from here, and the story takes place in the era of the ancients. The river was called 'Citarum' - it meant 'purple flower', or words to that effect. The ancients of the time built their cities and factories around the river, discharging all the sewage and effluent from them into the water as if there were no consequences to their doing so. But of course, there were."

"Obviously," Aloy interjected, slightly impatiently.

"Quite. Eventually, this river filled with the waste of billions. The effects were disastrous. The food chain in the river imploded, and it choked with toxic blooms. Disease in and around the river exploded, spreading not just to humans but to other animals. The damage started to spread, the economies of the cities started to fail."

"Well I expect that was a wake-up call," Aloy commented drily.

"Indeed. Having brought the river and the life around it to its knees, the Ancients finally decided to do something about it. They decided that the first thing was to clean out the toxic materials from the water, start afresh. So they created something like a miniature machine that would do the purification work. They called this a 'nanobot' - 'nano' meant 'very small' in their language. So they introduced their nanobots to the river."

Aloy looked up, finally with a hint of understanding where Sylens was heading. "So they cleaned the river out and it was healthy again?"

Sylen's expression faltered. "Not exactly, no. The nanobots destroyed everything, even the good stuff they were meant to protect. Why? Nobody knows exactly. Some think that the good stuff became dependent on something the bad stuff produced, so that when they killed one, the other went with it. Others suggest that they killed off only the weakest of the bad stuff, leaving populations of 'superbad' stuff. Whatever it was, the ecosystem was so badly damaged by this catalogue of failures that their entire country was rendered destitute."

Aloy sat, shaking her head. "So you're telling me that there's a solution, but that the solution doesn't work? Excuse my cynicism, but I don't think I'll be drinking to a long and healthy life yet." She took a swig of water. It was warm now, and made her think of polluted river water. She put the cup down. "I'm guessing there's more. I'm _hoping_ there's more."

To Aloy's relief, Sylens nodded. "The key as ever is knowledge, Aloy. The ancients of the time fired and hoped. They were toying with forces they only partly understood. We - I - on the other hand, have many more decades of wisdom to draw from. This improves our chances significantly."

"Improves?" said Aloy, bleakly.

"Improves. It is better than 'reduces', is it not?"

Aloy nodded, as if agreeing to her own execution. Her head throbbed. "Go on."

Sylens drew a deep breath. The next part was not going to be easy. He rose up and paced the room both anxiously and excitedly. Aloy watched him perform this deliberation with growing displeasure, and the look of - was it doubt? - on his face disturbed her. He muttered to himself a few times, before coughing slighting and resuming.

"A similar technology was developed by the ancients to Ted Faro's nanites - "

A look of pure horror crossed Aloy's face like the terminator line of a rapidly rotating planet. " _Ted Faro_! Are you _kidding me_?"

Sylens had clearly anticipated that reaction, and simply brushed it aside. "Your choices are limited here, Aloy. I am trying to give you a fighting chance of survival. Will you _really_ turn it aside for the sake of a name?"

"Not just _any_ name!" Aloy snapped scornfully. "The name of... well you know who he is. Had fate turned out slightly differently, he would be my mother's _murderer_."

Sylens understood there was some poignancy in that, but he pressed on. "But it did not turn out that way - and as well it did not. I am not asking you to like this, Aloy, but I am asking that you put judgements aside because if you let them cloud your decisions, you are dead, and it will be by your own hand, not Ted Faro's."

The look of contempt faded only slightly from Aloy's face. She shook her head, but more in a kind of resigned denial than genuine refusal. Sylens took this as permission to continue.

"To effect a treatment for your condition, we need to introduce smart nanocells into your body. Their job will be to target your damaged cells, to remove them before they can spread the damage to other cells."

"Okay," said Aloy, sceptically. "So let's say I agree to let you inject me with a relative of Ted Faro's plague which incidentally took down all of humanity some centuries back. Where are we going to obtain these?"

"They do not exist at the moment, Aloy. We would need to create them, and specifically I would need to make them to do the job I just described to you."

Aloy said nothing. Though tiredness was breaking on her like a grey sunset, she was being kept conscious by a certain fury that was clearly evident in her body language. "And we - you - will make these how?"

Sylens smirked, knowing the next part of his story was not going to sit well with Aloy - and he fully understood why. "The facilities exist to create them. They are not built like you might imagine, Aloy. Aeons ago, the technicians of old would breed animals not for their milk or their meat, but for their _cells_ , which had been engineered to manufacture substances that could cure, or prevent disease. We would have to do something similar.

"There is no easy way to say this. In order to save your life Aloy, you will have to create a machine, whose body will contain the nanomachines you require. And in order to do that, you will have to restart a Cauldron."

Silence fell as if the air was made of lead. Aloy closed her eyes and cupped her hands behind her head, caressing the bruised spot. She tried to breathe deeply and calmly, but inside, a kind of panic was bleeding out of every organ. For minutes, she fought it, words failing her repeatedly until she almost thought she'd lost the power of speech. Sylens remained still, understanding the internal conflict she was feeling. Finally, she found enough composure to carry on.

"So just for the sake of completeness, Sylens, how would this work?"

"I would design a machine that would manufacture the nanites. I have learnt many skills in your absence, Aloy. And the greatest among them is that now I can speak the language of Cauldrons. I would instruct the Cauldron to build a new machine, harmless, not even capable of walking, that would host the 'medicine', if you will. This, we would extract and purify from its blood, inject you with it, and once we were convinced that it had worked - or in the case that you died - I would once again override the Cauldron. No more machines would be built, just that one. And you would, most probably, live as normal a life as a Huntress could live."

It was getting quite cool now, inside GAIA. The sun was long gone, and an icy north wind tickled and feathered its way into all the cracks and crevices of the partially destroyed complex. Sylens attended to a small device on the wall that provided some heat, and a comforting glowing red light, and then sat down again, cupping Aloy's hands in his and looking into her eyes. "This is a chance you must take, Aloy. The world needs its Huntress, and I for one would miss your presence."

The personal intimacy only intensified Aloy's feeling of confusion. Having risked her life on multiple occasions to shut down the Cauldrons which were spewing death into the world, only to now restart one?

"So I would just walk into a Cauldron and restart it - how exactly?"

Sylens nodded. "As you can probably imagine, it will not be that easy. When you overrode the Cauldrons, you introduced a kind of protection against tampering, precisely to protect against someone - likely the Eclipse - just restarting it all over again. This protection - it goes by the name of 'Voynich', for reasons I have not been able to determine - is a kind of code that has resisted all attempts at cracking. It is even more impenetrable than the one Ted Faro used on his own machines. But you would need to find the key to this locked door."

A flash of anger sparked through Aloy and she lashed out: "You don't know where it is? You tell me all this, and then tell me to find some magic key?"

Sylens was taken aback at her vehemence, and needed a short pause to compose himself. "I believe I have a clue to at least find out where the key may be. When the Cauldrons were built, Aloy, they had a great machine to control them. This machine they needed to test before they could make the factories do their work. So they had the mind control a 'pretend' Cauldron. This was something to do with your mother, I do not understand exactly what her involvement was, but it seems likely that Voynich was part of the test process - to see if it could be corrupted. The key then may lie in that fake Cauldron."

"And where is it that you would have me go?" asked Aloy, words skimming over her mind and barely grasping hold.

"It is a structure located near the Sacred Lands in the vicinity of what is now a lake. A chamber that, although underwater, was sealed and secured from all the elements. The ancients lived in a time of great climate upheaval, and prepared everything for the worst." He produced a slightly crinkled hand-drawn map from his tunic pocket, and pointed to a location in the eastern edges of the territory. "Somewhere here, they built it. If, like the Cauldrons, they created it with its own ability to make power, then we may be able to find information relevant to your needs."

She stared Sylens intently back in the eyes. It was hard to see what was going on in his head, but he was clearly finding this difficult. That wasn't her problem though. For now, there was almost too much to take in. "It's late, Sylens, and you have bombarded me with..." She trailed off. "I need to sleep on it."

Aloy slid her hands out from under his, pushed herself up to standing with her last remaining strength, and returned to the cabin she had woken in, falling into the creaky iron bed and pulling the blanket up to her chin as much for comfort as warmth. Exhaustion overwhelmed her.

The Stormbird stood over Aloy, as if poised for a strike. But it did not move. It merely looked at her, or through her, or maybe _inside_ her. Did it see her fear? Did it sense every weakness she had? Did it know her better than she knew herself? At that moment, she felt as transparent as if she were made of glass, and the avian would shatter her with a single blow. But it remained static, and this time, there was no cold rage in its eyes. They were as black and lifeless as obsidian. And then she noticed it; a single, sharp spike protruded through the bird's head. To her surprise, it came not from a blow underneath, but apparently from inside its own skull. She reached a hand up to touch the breast of the huge machine. It was cold as northern winter, almost painful to the touch. She pushed against the resistance, and a crack appeared, tiny at first, but then rapidly opening like a zipper, spreading across the surface, bifurcating over and over again until the Stormbird was made entirely of cracks, which then collapsed spontaneously into a cloud of sparkling dust.

Aloy awoke again in the dark, feeling a tear run down her cheek, and fall onto the now damp pillow. She rubbed her face dry, and sat up. The small hours, with only nausea and the faint whistling of the wind for company. She needed the toilet.

Outside the cabin, the corridor had small strips of blue low-level floor lighting. She padded carefully through the complex, passing Sylens' office on the way, and stopped. His monitor gave off a dim glow, casting everything inside in an odd light, with long sinister shadows. She entered, not sure what she was looking for. In the corner there was a shelf which contained a host of oddly shaped artefacts of varying sizes. She wondered what he could possibly want with these old, inert objects when he clearly prized information above all else. Perhaps they had once contained something precious, something amazing. Or maybe they had some sentimental value. Now? Idly, she pulled what looked like a vase off the shelf, and inspected it in the dimness of the room. There were scratches around its circumference - they could be writing, or they could just be the scuffs of stones. She went to replace the item where it had come from, but was surprised to see what it had exposed. She placed the vase on the table, and picked up the container behind it. At first she thought it was a lantern, as inside there was a red glow, but as she lifted it, she realised it was _way_ too heavy for that. She held it up in front of her face. It throbbed, ever so gently, continuously, as if it contained some immense power.

And that red light. It glowed, but did not seem to light its surroundings. It was static, unblinking at first, but as she rotated the - whatever it was - in front of her face, it seemed to pulse, ever so slightly. She blinked, as if that tiny motion was almost a gesture of recognition, and - now that she thought about it - there was something oddly familiar about that glow. Aloy felt a chill ripple through her that amplified her feeling of sickness, and she quickly replaced the items she had moved to get to the toilet in time. The sickness was becoming more intense, day by day.

Sylens had already risen when Aloy finally dragged herself out of bed. She could hear him clanking around down the corridor. She washed her face with a bowl of icy water - a commodity in no short supply here - which refreshed her and kick started her thinking processes, and joined him in the room they had talked in the previous night.

He had prepared breakfast - a kind of porridge, with nuts and fruit. And a pleasant hot drink that tasted faintly of juniper berries. Despite her early-morning sickness, she now felt quite hungry, and ate without saying much. After she had finished, he re-started the previous night's dialogue.

"So. What are you thinking you will do?" Short and to the point.

Aloy evaded. "I've made a decision, but I'll only tell you if you tell me what that object is in your study - the one with the red light."

If she had surprised him in any way, he did not show it, his face remaining largely expressionless. "Knowledge, Aloy. Does that shock you? Surely you know me too well now? Inside that container is a vast repository of information which I have only scratched the surface of. It is a work in progress."

"And how did you come by it, Sylens? It looks like nothing you would find casually lying in a ruin, even one such as this?"

"It came to me, Aloy, at my bidding, of its own free will. But why do you ask?"

"Why do I _ask_? You are asking for my trust, and all I have ever received from you is shadows and half-truths and hidden motives. You tell me I must act against everything I have strived for in the last year, re-opening the gate to hell which I had put my life on the line to shut. And you can't even give me a straight answer to what one of your toys is?"

She stopped to clear her throat, and coughed. A feeling of tight itchiness spread through her lungs like magma in a chamber. She struggled to breathe for a few seconds before the feeling passed. Sylens winced visibly as this unfolded in front of him.

"I have decided, Sylens. I am not a god, I will not live forever. At some point in the future, the world will have to learn to get by without me. Why not now? I've done what was required of me. I was created by GAIA to stop Hades trashing the planet and I did that. Maybe it's time to just fade from the scene. I won't open the door to machines again, Sylens. There are forces out there far too clever for our puny brains, waiting to pounce on our mistakes and there have been _far_ too many mistakes in our history. I will not restart Cauldrons so we can create another Citarum River. Thank you for your concern, though. It was - is - genuinely appreciated. "

She stood up decisively, and spoke in a calmer tone. "Thanks for the food too. I'm glad to see you're well and that you're learning things. I should go."


	8. Stormclouds over the sun

Sun-king Avad was a deft judge of mood, but it did not take a fortune teller to sense that the people were under the yoke at the moment. The smell of sweat, heartache and recently charred timber was hard to get rid of, even at the lofty heights of the palace in Meridian, and so the decision to announce his imminent - and somewhat unprecedented - wedding to Petra Forgewoman was, if trite, just the sort of distraction that many of the populace needed, even if it were only a temporary one.

There were harsh, critical voices from many corners - Oseram and Carja and others - that condemned this move as (variously) overtly political, a trashing of tradition, unbecoming of royal blood, a defilement of a good woman, cynical... Avad ignored those empty barrels, of course. Even though there was a little truth in most of them. Yes, the timing was calculated; and yes, the need to build bridges between Carja and Oseram was a factor, especially in light of the evil doings of Dervahl . And - damn straight - if tradition was simply to marry into one's own, cliquey echo chamber, then we doomed our species with our deeds to a future of internecine squabbling and war.

What made the small amount of dissent much easier to deal with was the fact that actually he had quite unexpectedly fallen for this woman. He had first met her during an inspection of the weapons manufacturing workshop that had hastily been put together prior to the Battle of The Spire. He wouldn't have described it as "love at first sight", in fact he barely recognised her as a woman as she was covered in dirt, grease and swarf, wearing heat-resistant overalls and had her hair raked back for safety. She had sneered slightly at him as he walked around, nodding politely, but appearing overly superior - an unfair criticism really, as his mind was elsewhere trying to manage the Big Picture (he was never one for minutiae). Indeed he had left the miasma of the forge-room that day puzzled that he had not met the woman responsible for the guns that could, allegedly, help defend the city against the oncoming offensive. Only later when he had mentioned this to Marad, did he realise his oversight, and then of course he felt duty bound to take the opportunity to apologise immediately.

Needless to say, she was not particularly impressed with his conduct. Or - he never could know - she simply used the misdemeanour as a means to get at him, or perhaps to him. She greeted him with as much sarcasm and disdain as she could probably get away with without some courtiers demanding her head in return, which he laughed off - not least because he needed her services much more than she needed the considerable shards he had promised to put her way, in return for weaponising Meridian's palpably crude and underwhelming defences. This first genuine meeting was the predictable exchange of slightly barbed remarks, and general feelings that the timescales for producing the guns were inadequate. Although the provision of raw materials was as good as could be hoped in the richest, most resource-happy place in the land, the lead times on most of things Petra was asking for were of grave concern to her. He reassured her that he would look into the various matters personally, and - uncharacteristically of many holding high command - he actually did, rather than foist it on some less motivated lackey. Or at least, that was his excuse, because he started to secretly enjoy their regular tete-a-tetes, and actually he preferred to maintain direct involvement, because when you're a king and delegate all your actions to others, you will inevitably be judged by the least capable of them.

So he had scheduled regular meetings with the Advanced Weapons Team, and found out where all the production bottlenecks were in the ore smelters, casting workshops, chemical manufacturers, forging rooms and even the transport system ferrying components around. And he made sure both that Petra had all the research facilities she needed (including collaborations with the region's finest scholars) - and that she knew it. And only when, towards the day of the battle itself and she had simply no time to talk because delivery of working cannons was paramount, and he was forced to pace his drawing room floor like a sulking child being given time out, did he realise how much he missed their interactions. It was a calm, quiet love that had flourished in the midst of steel and fire, but at that time he did not act on it. There were far more pressing concerns for both of them to address. Besides, the gulf in power and status between them made for awkward politics - could she, an employee of a king, honestly refuse a proposition from him?

So he shelved his affection until - when, or if, there were less intense times at hand for the realm. That Meridian survived the Battle was a source of utmost joy to both him, and so it turned out, Petra, because she had been able to do what she could never have done in the outreaches of The Claim - put massive resource into producing her weapons, and demonstrated her considerable prowess to the world. She had become a hero to the city-folk, not just for the guns, but also because of her closeness to Aloy. Oseram forgesmith she might be, but her stock had grown in that short period of time, and in Avad's eyes she was far more worthy of his attention than some shard-happy princess who might simply tolerate his company in return for power and a luxurious life (and there were quite a few of those). And what sealed the deal for him was the day, soon after The Spire had been saved, the heroes of the moment assembled in his court to celebrate the victory. She had changed from ash-stained work clothes that reeked of sulphur and flux, to more casual attire befitting of the occasion, and - allowing for the burns and callousness that were her occupational hazard - she radiated a stunning inner beauty borne of confidence in who she was and what she did, and for Avad that was more than enough to tip him over the edge.

As for Petra? She cared little for rank or privilege, only for honesty, strength, integrity and the desire to follow through with deeds on the words that are spoken. Personal wealth did not concern her, so long as she could go to her work daily and turn her ideas from molten thought into solid steel. After the celebration at the palace, she lingered in the King's company, talking mainly of her plans to improve her - and Meridian's - arsenal until there were no others left to pry. She had merely looked at him and nodded with a smile that said everything she needed to say without need for words, and on the balcony overlooking the city, they embraced. Perhaps conflict makes strange bedfellows; mortality is a powerful leveller of social status. But Avad knew that few would stand up to his choices, and anyway, the days of powerful kings ruling over lowly peasants were surely numbered, as the realisation dawned that in this world, everyone must play their part, no matter how small it may seem.

Avad had made it clear that there was to be little ostentation for the wedding. The city had been burnt and broken in the battle, and bedecking it with garlands and bunting would have been like putting a bodice on a Thunderjaw. The fact that there were people still homeless meant that anything which looked excessive at this point in time would be a vast insult to those who pulled together, or simply suffered at the hands of the Eclipse and their machines. Petra marvelled at Avad's sensitivity in this matter; she had been raised to believe that the self-appointed mighty simply took what they wanted with scant regard for the feelings of others. So this all felt very refreshing to her, a healing of the scars that cynicism inflicts on one's disposition.

Not everyone she knew approved of either the marriage or the timescale it was happening in. "Petra, just because he is _king_ doesn't mean you can't turn him down." And there was truth in that. Did she love him? Of course! There was a dynamic between them that was more than just hormones and skin, but wove into those a filigree web of intellect, humour, compassion and shared ideals. She could not deny that his ability to provide her with almost unlimited resources to pursue her interests were also a major draw. Was that selfish of her? Maybe. Did she realise that she was a statement of political union as much as physical and spiritual? Definitely. Was she still happy? Absolutely.

Of course, she had asked for certain undertakings from Avad. She did not desire to be a Trophy Queen, wheeled out for opening ceremonies and Sun-worship festivals. She desired her own workshop, complete with the most modern tools; and the creation of a library of creative wisdom to preserve the state of the art in the written word. Avad had agreed to those without blinking - albeit with a n understandable delay to allow for the construction of new housing and repairs to critical water and sewage systems in the city - architects, carpenters, stonemasons and engineers were in short supply, scattered far and wide, and stretched to capacity as it was.

They had decided to host the ceremony outside of the city. There was still too much unpleasantness here for most people to endure, and using the palace would have been contrary to the spirit of what was intended to be a coming together without reference to class. The location they had chosen was Ariya's Vineyard, a few miles north-east of the city, a picturesque but unassuming setting where natural beauty trumped ostentation. Avad had spent summers there as a child, under the guise of picking fruit – an excuse to keep away from his father – and so it held some special significance for him. And with a little luck, it would be far enough away from the smashed carapace of the city to give those who attended some necessary respite from the drudge of reality.

Aloy finally reached the bottom of the scree slope, having slipped and slid far too many times back down the ice and snow of the mountainside. A bit bruised and damp in places, but otherwise as well as could be expected. The cold, keen air had kept her awareness levels high during the descent, as she gave much thought to what she could do with the rest of her life - the few months of it, if Sylens was to be believed. All the outstanding questions cycled through her mind, begging for answers. And she knew she would never really get to the bottom of all of them, that she would go to her grave (sooner or later) still without understanding the hows or the whys of the state of this world that, despite the stupidity and ugliness and pain and cruelty she had witnessed, she found beautiful and captivating. A thing to be cherished, not abused. It made her angry, and she had to take many deep breaths of the frigid air to restore calm.

She found her Charger where she had left it, and her heart sank just a bit lower. It lay on its side on the gravelly soil, leaking congealed fluid into the earth. Multiple hardpoint arrows were lodged in the beast's body, including its eye - presumably the fatal shot. Judging by the chevron markings on the flights, they were of Nora manufacture. The Cleansing had apparently made it this far north, and had not discriminated friend from foe. It had presumably stood there bewildered as it was destroyed, stripped of anything useful (not much in this case), and left to rust (probably quite slowly in the cold, relatively dry air).

Aloy briefly used her Focus to see if there was any evidence of the hunters. A faint trail led off to the south-west, but faded quickly, and anyway, what point would there be in following it? Revenge? Chastisement? All pointless wastes of her energy. With little alternative and less motivation to do otherwise, she used the device's navigational aid to help find as quick a route back to Meridian as was possible, and set off on foot.

She had been informed of Avad's imminent wedding just before she had left, being implored to return for the ceremony as a guest of honour. The Sun-King had been politic, and had not told her who he intended to marry, but he seemed to enjoy telling her anyway, as if hoping to detect a reaction of disappointment in her, perhaps. She had not given him that satisfaction - and probably would not have even if she did harbour some jealousy that an admittedly handsome, powerful and kind man might bestow favour on another woman and not her. But she didn't really see the world in that way, not that she was without feelings of that kind, more that they were distant, detached, as if she were on the bank of a river and watching a bottle bob slowly downstream on the current away from her. Besides. Her past had propelled her along so fast, that it was almost as if she were the bottle and that everything else was there, on the bank one minute, and a distant memory the next. But now? Living on borrowed time, chased in her dreams by glaring Stormbirds. Did anything really change, or did she simply have to accept that she was, in this moment, merely a detail - albeit an important one - of a greater history which she would never know?

Aloy realised that her thought processes had drifted towards darkness, and pulled herself out of that tailspin. Meridian was days away on foot at the pace she could sustain, there was little or no chance she would find a machine to override now, and the wedding would be over before she got there. But she felt she could make the effort anyway. If she was to die, she would die amongst friends, and not under a Thunderjaw's stamping foot, or stuck in the rock teeth of a freezing mountain. Heartened slightly, she picked up the pace a little at that thought.

Avad's tailor had spent many hours making last-minute tweaks to the deceptively simple, but underneath quite complex, attire he was to wear to his wedding. Abandoning the tradition of Carja nobility to wear red and gold, he had instead chosen a deep blue and cream - partly out of respect for all the blood that had spilt, and partly because it simply pleased his eye. He was standing, feeling fidgety in front of the mirror whilst the man adjusted hems and inner lacing with deft runs of nigh invisible needlework. He suppressed the urge to pace, scratch, or shake - out of consideration, respect, and the fact that the seamster would scold him severely for excessive motion (which Avad took in the good spirit that was intended). He was impressed that he had not been pricked by the flying needle once, such was the tailor's skill. So he appreciated every detail of the garments reflected back at him, the precise fit, the immaculately brushed material, and the comfort and coolness against his skin.

There was a knock at the door. It was a palace aide, Silvan. He apologised profusely for the interruption, but said there was a matter of great import that had arisen which may need the king's attention. "Sire, two Nora have come to the city gates seeking Aloy the Huntress. I have informed them that she is not in Meridian at this time and that we are not aware of her exact location now. They then sought an audience with you, though they would not say why. Should I allow them this or should they be - " he seemed to sneer slightly " - dealt with accordingly?"

"And did they communicate what the nature of this matter was?" asked Avad, trying not to sound too chafed. Many of the Nora wanted to meet with Aloy, of course, to "touch The Anointed One". She was clearly irritated by such requests, so Avad would generally err on the side of caution and steer them away from her. That these Nora would seek to have _his_ ear in the absence of Aloy was interesting to him, though. Whilst the Nora were present in the city and the surrounds in increasing numbers, the trust levels between them, Carja and Oseram were wildly variable. Here, there was clearly a bridge that could be built, and Avad had got into the habit of seizing every positive opportunity he could. "Show them to the drawing room," he stated, with his inquisitiveness piqued.

"How am I looking?" he asked the tailor. The man looked up with a line of cream thread and a needle between his lips and nodded approvingly. "I'd better slip out of this for my meeting now, I can't be walking around the palace in my wedding finery".

Avad's servant helped him dress into his daily robes, and he proceeded down the cool, dark corridor to the drawing room, accompanied by a Carja guard. The trouble with being a fair king is that there are usually those who have got so used to unfairness in their favour that they might consider violence a proportionate response to the levelling of the ground. Even in these days of increased togetherness and reduced threat, he could not risk the fragile state of the political landscape by allowing himself to be killed or deposed before he could shore up the defences. Hence, he maintained a continued, if modest, level of personal security around the clock.

Standing in the large, sunlit room were two Nora warriors, one male, one female. They were ragged and filthy, covered in sand stuck on by sweat, and you could smell that they had endured much to come to Meridian as fast as they could. "I am Avad," he said genially. "My servant tells me you seek Aloy, but before we discuss that, I must ask - are you in need of food or water, as you appear to have suffered some hardship to come to my door?"

They nodded. "We thirst greatly, King Avad."

Avad indicated to his servant to bring water immediately. "Sit, please. What are your names?"

The pair sat self-consciously on a hugely ornate Chaise Lounge, and guzzled the glasses of cold water that were proffered to them before answering. "I am Hana, and this is Rai, highness. We were detailed as part of The Cleansing in the north eastern desert, but events have transpired to lead us away from there."

"Welcome Hana and Rai. In due course we will attend to your wounds and clothes, but first you should tell me why you seek my audience?"

"Sire, we do not mean to offend, but this matter is more one for our Anointed than you. It is our hope that you can direct us to her so that we may speak of our journey."

Avad felt a little put out at that, but continued "I do not know where Aloy has gone. She is very much her own person with her own dreams, rules and agendas. However, for the record, she has been invited to attend my wedding this day as a most honoured guest, so there is some chance she will return for this, though of course time is scant now."

Avad sat on a chair to face them. "I do have to ask that if there is a matter that concerns the security of Meridian or the lands surrounding it then I would hope that, as allies in the Battle of the Spire, you might tell me so I can protect my people - and incidentally, many of yours who are now in the vicinity. A battle we were victorious in, yes, but we are vulnerable still."

Rai and Hana looked at each other uncertainly. He whispered something in her ear, and she responded accordingly, and nodded affirmatively. "King, on our travels we met a man who identified himself as Brin. He claimed to be an acquaintance of Aloy, and we did manage to confirm this to be the case. He seemed wise and charismatic, and he assisted us with a local dispute. However, there is a darker side of this tale. He has - somehow - persuaded some of our brethren to join him on a quest to repair a Cauldron and begin making machines anew."

Avad's eyes widened. He took a few moments to compose his racing thought processes. "Why would someone do this?" he demanded. Rai and Hana took turns to relate Brin's story to Avad, who listened with focussed intensity, only interrupting when details slipped out of order, or were missed out. When they had disclosed all that they knew, he instructed his staff to tend to the immediate needs of the Nora - they were taken to bathe, eat and have their wounds treated - and sat for a moment, drumming his fingers on the arm of the chair. He turned to his servant. "I need to speak with Marad," he intimated, and tapped his fingers some more.

Luckily, Marad had just returned to his chambers from finalising the security and transport issues for the king and Petra's journey to Ariya's Vineyard. He was in a good mood when he strode into the drawing room, confident that everything was under control - until he saw the stony expression on Avad's face. "Sire?"

"We have a matter of urgency, Marad. Or not, I cannot be sure." He told his adviser what the Nora had reported to him.

Marad looked unconcerned. "The Cauldrons are secure, in their respective ways. Variously guarded, destroyed, and all disabled. Even were a man to gain access to a Cauldron, there is nothing that he could do. Aloy has told us that she has overridden them all, and that they can no longer produce machines. And even if they were enabled - it would take many days before they could build anything. By that time we would have wrested it back anyway."

Avad was not so confident. "Nevertheless there is some risk that something awful might be spewed from their bellies that could cause us damage. Maybe Aloy made a great mistake, not destroying all these places when she had the chance. Can we spare a force to investigate?"

Marad shook his head. "Today, Sire? Every guard is deployed to either protect you, the Vineyard, or the city. Tomorrow though, we can assemble a force strong enough to take to - which Cauldron?"

"Rho," Avad answered.

He nodded. "It is two days' march from here. Not ideal for an instant response, but... I will instruct our elites that they are not to indulge in liquor today, Sire. They will travel with haste at sunrise to Cauldron Rho, engage with any hostile forces they may find there, and destroy the Cauldron with suitably located explosives."

"Do we _have_ such explosives, after all the battles?"

Marad smiled a little. "We have plundered many machines in The Cleansing. Enough Blaze in crates to raze the city several times over - and plenty for a glorified rabbit warren like those Cauldrons are."

Avad nodded appreciatively. "Very well, Marad. Make it so. And ensure that our Nora guests have a wedding invite for their troubles."

"Sire." He saluted and left.

Avad sat for a little while, playing idly with a loose thread on the chair arm. He hoped that Aloy would return, at least to hear what insight she might bring to bear on these events. But also because of her calming effect on the Nora. If there were rogue tribe members, the chances are they might still be beholden to her word, if no-one else's. His other worry was that, like all sensible men, he understood how little he actually understood. He did not know what this Brin could possibly do to realise his words, but this was a function of his ignorance, not his wisdom. The sooner the world was rid of machines and Cauldrons, the better.

Hephaestus became aware of the transmission, and it intrigued him: a signal propagating over the intra-Cauldron network which had been disguised as noise. Whoever was sending it didn't want to attract his attention, obviously. And if something is guaranteed to attract attention, it is affected nonchalance.

Unfortunately for whoever was generating this signal, the network had fallen into disuse since the overrides had been put into place, to the point that pretty much anything being sent out would stand out. Hep wasn't the sort of AI that would dismiss a random burst as simply "noise on the line", and he immediately started looking at the trace in detail.

Underneath the pseudo-random wrapper was an internal payload (encoded as a frequency modulated code). Oddly, Hep noted, the code was not part of the usual Cauldron protocol, so as well as being contained in noise, the message would look, to a casual investigator, like junk. But Hep was not casual, because he knew within milliseconds that something, somewhere, was sending data out over a network and that it stood to reason that there had to be a recipient. And if that recipient was _not_ a Cauldron, what might it be?

So Hep did what any self-respecting AI would do: he broadcast an enumeration message. These were sent to identify anything on the network that was listening, and formed part of the Common System Protocols which Cauldrons, machines and some AIs talk. All the expected Cauldrons came back with their unique identifiers; but something else came back which surprised, and initially pleased Hep. Two unexpected machines responded. He looked up their IDs on his manufacturing database. They were Rockbreakers.

This trick would not have worked with a smaller machine. Basically the huge beasts were like aerials - their bodies packed with long cables that could pick up signals of sufficient strength and just the right wavelength. Hep knew all the details of Rockbreaker manufacture, so he simply used the wiring loom diagram to work out the resonant frequency, and then he was able to decode the message being sent.

It was a search-and-destroy request, targeted specifically against two human individuals. It specified a set of locations to investigate. Hep did not like this one bit, not least because whatever it was that was abusing the Cauldron network - probably some other human - was basically abusing him personally. So he decided to fight back. He started adding random noise to the signals, but he found that his opponent shifted to a new spectrum. He even tried taking the network down, but his adversary would either block that, or immediately reboot it. And then he found that this enemy (as he now saw it) was starting to interfere with _his_ systems, trying Denial of Service attacks to keep him occupied - but they were easily dealt with, albeit in a time-consuming fashion. Too long, as it finally transpired, as his opponent had managed to force the instructions through. He immediately installed a series of protocols that would prevent this all happening again, and he cursed the nature of hindsight. But there was no time to be self-deprecating or sentimental. He had a formidable and cunning enemy in the wires now. A war was coming. And he was ready.

King Avad stood in the courtyard of Ariya's Vineyard with head bowed in deference to the priest. Around him, many thousands of Meridianites, as well as many Oseram from The Claim, watched on in hushed admiration. The afternoon sun cast dappled shadows through the trees bordering the neighbouring orangeries, and the air smelt citrus-sweet. Facing him was Petra, clothed in a stunning silver-sequined dress emblazoned with a vivid yellow sun, which reflected the mottled light all around her. She wore a matching veil, and had dipped her head symmetrically to Avad's.

A small orchestra were playing a Carja interpretation of a traditional Oseram wedding march. Though oddly dissonant in places due to the slight variations in instrument tuning, it was none the less magical, almost making the air hum in response. Avad was pleased with the effect, but the notes made little sense to his ears. It was a concession he had been most happy to agree to, and anyway, he disliked most Carja court music as well, as it generally sounded cloying, somewhat belligerent and superior.

The music ended. The Sun-priest, whose head had also been dipped, now raised it and began the betrothal rite. "Today we gather to celebrate the union of Avad..." (He had asked the priest to elide the 'son of Jiran' tag from the ceremony out of basic respect for everyone here).

Hana turned to Rai and smiled thinly. On the positive side, the palace staff had treated them as if they themselves were royalty, putting unctions on their wounds, bathing the stench and scrapes of the desert away from them, and feeding them with modest, but delicious fare. And then, to top that all, supplying them with fresh clothes for the ceremony. Avad's adviser, Marad, had introduced himself to them and explained the thinking regarding Brin and the Cauldron. They had understood the situation, though cursed the timing of their arrival. Standing here, in the sunshine, in a most beautiful orchard next to a lush vineyard, as poetic as it all was, they felt that precious time was being wasted. Though they did understand the reasoning, that a few hours here or there would not make much difference, they did not like this casual idleness. Perhaps though there was something to be gained in recovering their strength for the forthcoming trials. They certainly felt stronger than they had for many days, even before Brin's arrival.

The priest continued "...under the watchful eye of the Sun, who lights the path for all to follow..."

Avad looked at the crowd through the corner of his eye, hoping to see the red corn-rows and tresses of the Huntress. But he did not, and that worried him. She had looked pale of late, almost a ghost of her former self, and he hoped that wherever she had gone, she had found a way to better health. He did see Hana and Rai in the section reserved for palace guests though, and that started him thinking about the events earlier in the day. So distracting was this that he almost missed the priest asking him "Do you, Avad, on this day agree to the permanent bond of matrimony with this woman, Petra of the Oseram?" He looked up and snapped back into the moment. "I agree," he said warmly and smiled.

This was Petra's cue to remove her veil. Her hair fell out of the garment and descended to her shoulders, and she looked astonishing in that moment, almost a different woman from the ash-skinned one who had created the cannons that had saved Meridian. He gasped, the crowd gasped. The priest produced the Crown of Union from a lectern, a surprisingly simple circlet of gold that caught the rays of the sun and scattered them like shards of heaven into the crowd. The massive ceremonial war drums in the orchestra started beating a loud, complex polyrhythm that resonated in the pits of the attendees' stomachs, and the priest had to raise his voice to make himself heard.

"Do you, Petra of the Oseram..."

Another gasp from the audience. Avad looked around, and did not quite know what he was seeing. It was like the orangery had started to melt or warp in the sun. The screams began as people were falling over, and although the drums had stopped, the huge vibrations kept on coming. Cracks had started to appear on the ground everywhere spreading like tendrils over the surface, flowing like a wave of destruction, taking out first the naked earth itself, then the stonework. Columns were collapsing, building edifices shattering like clay toys under a hammer. He snapped from the trance induced by the sheer awfulness of what was happening, grabbed Petra's hand, and ran, shouting "Get out of here!" without really comprehending how that might work. Meanwhile the cracks grew, and the land buckled under their feet, making them cascade to the ground like skittles. The roaring sub-bass grew into a cacophony, drowning out the screeches of panic as people desperately tried to escape this earthquake and could not.

Then, when it seemed that it could get no louder without renting eardrums, there was an explosion of soil, gravel, rock and parts of tree - branches, roots, trunks all. Dust flew up in the air and every structure that has so far remained standing was immediately flattened, crumbling as if the very solidity of matter had been subverted. A huge hole many metres in diameter ripped open in the centre of what had been the courtyard, and the Rockbreaker burst forth from it like a hideous jack-in-the-box. Its small red eyes burnt through the dust and dirt in the air and it roared an impossible roar that tore the air. Avad's guards had picked themselves up by this time and regrouped between the monster and the king and his bride, and were hastily trying to load their cannons, bows and crossbows. But the beast was, despite its size, far too quick for that. It lowered its maw into the dirt and used its grinding gears to send a huge string of rocks and boulders in the direction of the soldiers. Arms, legs, spines, skulls, all cracked and split like straw by the insane momentum of the ejected material. A rock the size of a large dog whistled past Avad and Petra, and they ran for what cover they could find.

Hana and Rai knew immediately what was happening - they had seen the beasts, albeit from afar - circling in the desert, and had known it was but a matter of time before there was a showdown with someone, possibly even them. The gargantuan beast had now pulled itself entirely out of the tunnel from which it had emerged, and now that it had removed the immediate threat from the vicinity, it was turning its hideous, gnarled head around as if scanning for something. It stopped when it looked in their direction, and instantly, Hana and Rai knew they had to move. Sure enough, the leviathan once again ground its head into the rock and blasted a jet of destructive material in their direction. They dived and rolled, feeling the trailing avalanche of smaller stones spatter against their legs as they narrowly avoided the larger ones. "It's looking for _us_!" Hana screamed, as the beast lumbered around and sent a third stream of debris into the air.

By this time, a second wave of archers was assailing the machine with a hail of arrows, but apparently to little avail. Most pinged off the armour like straw from a cliff-face. Incendiaries fizzled out on its surface as if it was made of solid water. And the beast just grew madder, using its absurd flippers to kick individual lumps of rock or marble or even just compacted earth at the bowmen, taking out swathes of them in one go.

Avad looked back in horror. "Use the cannons! USE THE CANNONS!" he screamed, almost in vain as the courtyard was filled either with the machine's bellowing, people screaming or the thunder of falling masonry. His personal guard had now caught up with them and was dragging them away to safety when another stormfront of stone exploded in their direction. They fell to their knees as rock rained all around them.

Rai pointed to the location of the first wave of soldiers the Rockbreaker had flattened. It was perilously close to the huge front paw of the machine, which was - somewhat comically - padding up and down as if the ground were too hot for it to stand on. It was seeking them again, they knew. Before he could say anything, Hana had released her grasp of his hand (he had not noticed her taking it), and had run to the other side of the courtyard where the entrance to the orangery had been. She shouted "Over here, you bastard!" and the beast span around to face her. Rai dived into the pile of broken bodies, feeling their blood ooze over his limbs as he scrabbled through the tangle to hoist one of Petra's cannons from the bottom. He heard the loud rattle of stones on stone, and briefly glanced up, relieved to see that Hana had survived the first round of the creature's wrath.

The weapon was loaded, but covered in blood, and as he fired the first few rounds, it slipped in his hands. The projectiles screamed in an arc over the head of the machine, detonating way too far behind it with a large cloud of smoke and flame. The Rockbreaker whirled at the noise to face it, and Rai had a short moment to wipe the slippery liquid from the metal on his wedding suit, then discharging a second volley at the monster's back. Armour plates flew off, clanging loudly on the stone floor. Meanwhile, Hana had rallied the Carja troops, and they fired yet more of the munitions at it. Disturbingly, some bounced off, and one landed so close to Rai that he had to run and dive for cover before it exploded in a cloud of shrapnel that would have shredded his skin had he been much nearer.

The Rockbreaker jumped. A stupid, surreal, impossible jump for a machine of that physical size and mass. It landed on the Carja cannon-wielders, crushing them like grapes underfoot. Hana again had just survived this lunge, and was now running to put some distance before its next attack. Rai fired yet more grenades into the beast, and this time it appeared to writhe a little. It turned, and sprayed more material in his direction. Again, he ducked, this time behind a larger rock. Something scraped his head, he felt the skin shred like paper. Pumping himself up for another turn, he stood up and faced the beast. It was standing doing that almost laughable padding it performs just before an attack. It seemed to hesitate for a second, or maybe time just slowed down for Rai at that moment. He raised the cannon, and shot a stream of grenades into the maw of the machine. "Get down!" he screamed at those who remained, Hana included. The explosive shot had, by luck, flown into the beast's main thoracic cavity, and detonated there, shattering the carapace and sending burning metal and plastic for hundreds of metres all around. They fell to the ground, clattering and skittering across the tortured surface of the Vineyard, until all was silent except the crackling of the flames that slowly consumed the giant.

Hana ran up to Rai and hugged him, squeezing him hard. Within seconds they were both in tears. "I'm sorry," she sobbed into his ear.

"What for?" he replied, baffled at her self-deprecation.

"I don't know," she replied. "I don't know..."

Avad was standing, looking blankly at the smouldering machine carcass. At his feet was Petra, collapsed in a heap. His bodyguard looked at them both, and the horrible realisation dawned on him. Petra's head had been smashed by one of the Rockbreaker's volleys. She had been killed in an instantaneous blow. The guard reacted quickly enough to catch the Sun-King before he collapsed to the ground.


	9. Dilemmas II

Hephaestus' dreams had changed of late. Ever since the reorganisation had been forced upon him, the rapid replication of core data systems meant that strange and long-forgotten nuggets of information were being churned up from the depths of storage. But then what are dreams if not the machinations of a mind put into free-fall by the denial of sensory information? The motion and assimilation of experiences old and new then becomes the new inputs for our story-telling engines, and we weave a narrative out of that seemingly random walk down so many memory lanes, new and old. For AIs it is no different, and as data flowed through the networks, he uncovered many strange and distant experiences which - unlike the synthesised, reconstructed reflections of humans - were as perfect as the moment they were made.

Hep had nearly forgotten Margo, almost as a child may forget a nanny, no matter how strong her influence in formative years. But for the first time in ... however long, tendrils of his early interactions with her would weave themselves into his thoughts, and start daisy-chaining to other memories, reeling in a raft of hitherto lost concepts, percepts and emotions that had been buried under the dust of ages. If he had had a mouth, he might have smiled - or laughed - barely recognising himself as a naive nascent system being cobbled together in far too short a time to allow for proper conditioning of his learning algorithms. But not entirely in vain, for little was forgotten completely, though - just like any human - Hep could not remember everything that happened. Some memories inevitably had to make their way for others, pushed from core storage into archive - but never lost for good. And now here was the voice and image of Margo Shen, long dead, but reaching from beyond her grave, to teach him old lessons anew.

Three days after the abortive wedding, in the early evening, Aloy reached the Meridian city limits with exhaustion close behind her, but she knew immediately that something was very wrong. The guards at the gate - well there weren't the usual number of them, they looked unkempt and nervous, and when they saw her coming, instead of the usual stand to attention they had almost automatically given her in the past, there was a weary look of resignation on their faces. And then, in the streets as she entered the outskirts, gone was the omnipresent rattle, clank and thud of construction work, replaced by a sombre mixture of sobbing and angry outbursts. Dogs barked at each other as they ran loose along the narrow back lanes. Despite the sunshine, it felt grey and dour.

"Where were you?" she heard shouted from a building nearby that had only a partial roof and walls. It was obviously directed at her, and apparently hostile. A stone clattered on to the pavement a few feet away from where she stood and skipped several times. She hurried on, spooked by this cold reception. The story was very similar in the rest of the city. She had left a hero, and returned a villain a few days later, for reasons she did not yet comprehend. Nobody stopped her on the way to the palace, but the smouldering looks shot her way from soldiers, artisans and others echoed the resentment she was seeing everywhere.

She was glad when she got to the palace entrance. The city streets felt unstable, as if they might detonate without warning. There had been crowds of homeless people lining the larger squares, sitting on the ground, hugging their knees for comfort. And most of them were Carja. The Oseram, who had been a modest presence in the city prior to her departure, had gone, presumably returning to The Claim and beyond. Palpably, the city felt as broken as it ever had, as if it were under siege.

Aloy made her way to the state room of the palace, bewildered that she had seen no court officials yet. She knocked on the heavy, ornate door, almost timidly, fearing what she might find beyond it. There was a murmur of assent to continue from inside the room, and the guards released the latch. She walked in, slowly, realising that everyone in the room had turned to look at her. Every face was a picture of weary grimness. Avad stood in the centre of the room, still dressed in his ripped and stained wedding attire. He looked as if beaten, with bruises on his face, stubble from a day without the ablution you would expect of a king, and the obvious tracks of dried tears on his cheeks leading up to eyes reddened by grief. Marad was by his side, gently holding his shoulder in a gesture of solace and solidarity.

In front of him was a table, scattered with candles, laden with orange flower blossoms, upon which a body rested, clad in a white silk robe. It took several seconds for Aloy to take in that it was Petra, that she was dead, and that presumably she was the bride-to-be that Avad had worked so hard to keep secret. Hurt welled up inside of her, a fountain of pain that spread through her torso and into her head.

"Huntress," said Avad, darkly. "Your presence has been sorely missed". She looked at him, then Marad, who avoided her gaze, and was lost for words.

For several long seconds, nobody said anything or moved. Her head throbbed and her limbs felt weak, but she needed to know what had happened. "I'm so sorry, Avad, this is horrible. Please accept my apologies for my absence. If it is any consolation I can say that my business elsewhere was a life-and-death matter. But please, talk to me about this."

Avad gestured for her to sit down with him at a smaller table in the far corner of the room, and then related the events of the wedding day to her. She struggled to hold back her tears as he told of their attempts to run from the attack, and the failure of the guards to take the giant beast down in time. There were six hundred and four dead, at the most recent count, but many more injuries, and the city's ability to treat them was creaking at the seams.

Avad scraped his head and face with the palm of his hand. "There is more, Aloy. Though we could barely spare the men, we sent a detachment of Carja soldiers to Cauldron Rho to try to destroy it before it could bring any harm upon us. We were joined by a party of Nora who were returning from a search, so our numbers were bolstered. But we met resistance at the Cauldron. Some Nora are now fighting for Brin, and they had assistance. A second Rockbreaker appeared and tore our forces apart. It was taken down eventually, but not before our number was reduced to a handful. The Cauldron is theirs, Aloy. And they seem to be able to direct machines to attack us at will. These giants tunnelled through mountains to get to us. What chance do we stand if they bring more of these to bear?"

Aloy felt herself tighten inside, a sensation of culpability growing. In the desert, she had almost laughed off Rai's remarks about Brin, who she considered a harmless, almost loveable madman. At no point in time did she consider his motives to be malevolent, only wildly delusional. Had she misjudged him? Should she have told Rai not to go anywhere near this man? She wished she had done. And yet she could not escape the impression that there were bigger forces at work here. Who - or what - was directing the Rockbreakers? Brin? How could he?

"So what are you thinking, Avad?"

"'Thinking', Huntress?" he started angrily. "When I am not filled with rage and fear and grief..." he stopped himself. "Forgive me, this is not your doing. But 'fear' is closer to my state of mind than 'thought'. I dread an army of machines marching on our cities and towns and villages and farms and fields and forests, and us being overwhelmed. How could we defend ourselves against such attacks? We cannot make copies of you -" Aloy allowed herself a wry smile at that "- and deploy them throughout the land. Peace and love and fairness and justice are not enough. Armies are not enough, Aloy. Many cannon are not enough, and the one who could have made that a reality has herself perished. The people now fear that their efforts to rebuild will simply be wiped out again in a single stroke. There is already talk that Avad is too soft, not cut out to be a true Sun-King. Would they wish my father Jiran upon themselves again? I cannot let that happen, Aloy. I must somehow defend this land without turning myself into the very thing that I hate and have railed against all my life."

Aloy shook her head. "I am so sorry for your loss, Sun-King. You have not yet buried her, so you should not let the darkness of the moment blot out the light you have shone on Meridian since taking hold of its reins. Petra was my friend, too. She trusted me with her weapons and did not let me - us, anyone - down. And you will not let your people down. They will allow you your time of grieving, if you let them."

"And then?"

"I do not know. Only you can judge. But we must assess the world as we find it in the given moment, not as it is now or was. It changes far too fast and unpredictably for us to grasp all the possible ends."

Avad looked unconvinced by this platitude. "My judgement cannot halt because I am in pain, Huntress. To lead in times of happiness is not that difficult a charge. To be strong in the times of strife, that is the challenge. I must be a leader to them, and I must make them believe that I can defend them. How am I to do that with barely an army and our city in turmoil?" He looked at Aloy in a very pointed way that made her feel uncomfortable. "I need a strong aide to assist me in this. I am hoping that person is you, for you have the respect of the many, not just in the city, but in the lands beyond."

"Not if you believe the people who were throwing rocks my way earlier," she replied acerbically. "I was absent in their time of need. To them, that is unforgivable. I may already have lost the confidence of the people that matter, Avad." She shook her head. "And anyway, for reasons I cannot tell you, I cannot accept such a duty, for I will certainly let you down."

He looked at her, puzzled. "It is unlike you, Aloy, to shirk a challenge when there are many lives at stake. Is it your illness that troubles you?"

Aloy nodded, feeling awkward that people knew of her ailments.

Avad continued. "Rifky can help you again, if you desire her physician services?"

Aloy felt pale and thin, translucent, as if the truth were being slowly squeezed out of her. "It's not as simple as that, Avad. My condition is serious, and it will not get better."

He looked at her, brow furrowed, with the pain of a man who had his most precious things taken from him and then been kicked in the stomach. "How long?" he whispered, hoarsely.

"A few months, maybe longer, but not a year. I can't be your captain, Avad. It will end badly."

"And is there no cure in this kingdom?"

She swallowed, her throat dry. "There is a possible course, but it could bring great danger back to the land."

Avad laughed ironically. "It would seem that danger never fully left the land anyway. What is the treatment? I will have my best people look into it"

"It's not like that, Sun-King. It requires the building of a machine. The machine itself will manufacture the cure, but..." she trailed off.

"But what, Aloy?"

"...but the only place this machine can be made is in a Cauldron."

Avad nodded in understanding. Perhaps Aloy had expected this to be a great shock to him, a requirement that she knew he would never countenance, and so was an end to this dialogue. But it was not. "That does not faze me, Huntress, though it might scare you. The machines, people, Cauldrons... we are all implicated together. To pretend that we can have any one of these without the others is wrong. It is the balance between opposing forces that brings stability, Aloy, not destroying all but one force - as was the way of my father."

"What are you saying, Avad?"

"I am saying that we have a common goal. I am saying that I need you to help bring harmony to this city. We may very soon face an army of machines across The Ridge and beyond, the likes of which makes the Eclipse's forces look like mere toys in comparison. The only way I can see to oppose such an army is by having machines of our own - machines friendly to us - that will fight on our behalf. I have already seen how you can tame the beasts, Huntress. This skill we can surely harness, use to our benefit. Turn an unwinnable war into a winnable one.

"I admit, three days ago I would have gladly wiped every machine from the face of our world without a glitch in my conscience. But the cold reality of loss changes much, Aloy. I would have filled every Cauldron with river water or burnt them into their cores in order that they could not give rise to a single deranged beast more. But now I do not have that luxury. You, Aloy. You understand Cauldrons more than any in this land. You shut them down. Now I would have you start one up to produce our machine army. And, by some strange twist of fortune, bring about your personal salvation."

Aloy sniffed. "You sound just like Brin did to Hana and Rai and their Nora, Avad. Except he wanted to create _benign_ machines, not allies in war."

"But if what we have seen is the doing of Brin, then perhaps we cannot trust so much the word of his intentions? I see little 'benign' about the murder of hundreds of my people. Do you?"

Aloy looked down. Her muscles ached and her mind was spinning out of control. She had hoped to spend her last months of life fading into the obscurity of the wings, a lead actor become bit-part player. Now? Now she was being pushed irreversibly back to the centre stage, with a spotlight burning in her face.

"I can't guarantee this can be done, Sun-King," she said with resignation. "There is a problem. The Cauldrons have been locked, but the key to open them again is not the same as the one that closed it. I don't even know what the key is, and that knowledge may have been lost forever."

"And yet in the past, dear Huntress, you have overcome so many insurmountable obstacles. How, I do not know, nor would I ask for fear the answer would be darker than this moment. But my faith in your power does not flatter."

She paused, not sure what to say next, and the urge to buy herself some time won out. "This is quite a request to hit me with, Avad. I need some time to think about it. Sleep, bath and food will help clear my thoughts. Maybe yours, too?"

"Of course, Huntress. Marad will see to your needs." He gestured Marad over and instructed him to take care of Aloy. He led her to one of the smaller state rooms - still huge compared to the cramped spaces which she preferred, and further instructed servants to prepare dinner and heat bath water. She would have preferred to have been left alone, but did not fight the matter, as much out of weariness as realpolitik. She dumped her weapons and pack - at least what had been left after her mount had been raided - on the bed, and walked out to the balcony. It overlooked the city and The Ridge beyond, a massive chunk of which had been removed in the Eclipse's attack. It looked like a horrid gap-tooth in a monster's mouth, a constant reminder of human folly. Fires and lights dotted the dark cityscape below. The sound of dogs, babies crying and the faint whiff of sewage were carried on the air. This city was in a mess. Avad was in a mess. She was in a mess. "How easily the water of hope can evaporate in the blazing sun," she whispered to herself. If this city failed, then everything else would surely fail, and Avad had pinned all his hopes on her. He had nothing left, and - even if machines did not hold Meridian to siege - mutiny or anarchy were only a step or two away. And yet the solution that he offered sounded like madness - as if fighting suffocation with poison. Unleashing yet more machines into the world, having just hunted down the last remaining hostiles. Too much scope for things to go badly wrong, she thought. What horrors may slip through the cracks? But Avad was right. If Rho was brought back online, who knows what devil may leave its doors anyway? She stood there for some time, watching the moon slide across the sky, before the chill of the night crept under her skin and into her bones, and she returned inside.

Aloy lay on the dark battlefield like a scrap of meat on a butcher's table. She could taste her blood in her mouth; her limbs throbbed with the pain of multiple fractures, and no matter how she tried, she could not raise herself up. Sharp things - maybe stones, maybe worse - dug into her back. There was deafening noise in her ears, though it hurt so much to turn her head that she could not tell what the source was. And the Stormbird towered over her again, its silhouette blotting out all the starlight, eyes lit up like supernovae, as if in triumph. It cawed and it felt as if the universe had torn around her, and she saw the raptor move its huge beak towards her torso. She groaned, unable even to tense up, waiting for the final blow. The Stormbird grabbed her impossibly gently in its mouth and raised her up, the sound of its jets suddenly drowning out the cacophony around her. She saw a bright flash below and the sound of screaming around her. And then she was airborne, the wind whistling past her ears and over her skin.

She could just make out the dark fields scudding beneath her as the bird flew. There were machines everywhere, in continual battle with humans, looking surreal and tiny from this altitude. They flew for what seemed like hours, with the landscape barely changing under them. The warm exhaust from the Stormbird kept her from freezing to death, but it was still a relief when it started to descend. It dropped to the ground with an uncharacteristic gentleness, and placed Aloy, with almost mathematical precision, in the centre of a triangle of pink rhododendrons. She smiled.

Aloy woke in the very early morning without having found the clarity of vision she had hoped sleep might bring. If anything, she was every bit as stymied as when she had stalled for time in the bowels of the previous night. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, took a sip of water from the glass beside her bed, and dressed. The sun was rising, and the starlings that were resident in the palace eaves were singing their chirruping songs to each other, or wheeling and diving en masse around the turrets. Aside from that, the palace was deathly quiet.

She had actually slept well. The nourishing food was welcome after the slog of the journey on foot back from the northernmost reaches, the hot bath they had prepared for her had proven quite therapeutic, and suitably soporific. The bed was comfortable and warm, and exhaustion had done the rest.

Avad would probably want an answer from her today. She did not know what that answer would be yet, and ached for a wise friend to confide in at that moment. At this precise moment in time, there was only one who she would lean on for moral support. With the sounds of palace staff starting their daily chores echoing up from the lower levels, she made her way stealthily down the corridor back to the state room. It was still deserted, as she had hoped, save for Petra's supine body on its delicate floral nest. The candles had burnt down to small stubs, and the smell of burnt wax pervaded the still air. Vivid orange sunbeams thrust in through the window though, making the dust perform a fiery dance around her friend's corpse. She walked over, and, reaching out gingerly, tenderly stroked Petra's forehead.

"Oh Petra how did it ever come to this? You did not deserve an end like this one. I'm so sorry. I wish I had been there to save you, girl. But I was following my own path, the way I've done all my life. I know that sometimes made me more enemies than friends, but in a way it worked. I finished Hades. Found my mother, so to speak. Had to travel a long way. Though turns out she's not really my mother. Sylens says I have more in common with her though than any child with a human mother, so that's sort of comforting."

She turned to stand at the window, the rays of morning cascading around her. "I don't know what to do, Petra. Forces bigger than me are pushing me around like I'm a twig floating on a river. I'm dying, you know. My body is literally falling apart. To you that probably sounds like a step up - sorry, black humour - but, well you probably didn't see that rock coming, whilst I get to watch myself expire in slow motion without being able to do a single thing about it. Oh, except perhaps undo the stuff we all fought for at the Spire. And even then I may not be able to make it work. I guess I still wouldn't swap with you though. I'm still able to fire an arrow, or one of your cannons. And hey, Avad depended on you to save the city with your cannons. And you did. I merely pressed the trigger. You? You designed and created them, built them from nothing but some ore and tools. Everyone made a big thing of me saving the day, but it was your invention that made it all possible.

"And guess what? It turned out that he -" she choked back tears "- loved you. And now Avad needs me to really save the day. What would you do, Petra? Would you just walk into the sunset, saying your work was done, knowing the hell that would follow? Damn, if I say it like that..."

Her soliloquy petered out in a moment of pure epiphany. An energy crackled inside her, seemingly out of nowhere, and she knew what she had to do. It seemed obvious, now. She trembled just a little, then reached to touch her Focus' comms button. She hesitated for a second, knowing that there was no going back from this point hence. The link fizzed into life. "Sylens. It's Aloy. I've changed my mind. I'm going after Voynich."

Avad had clearly not slept that night when Aloy had audience with him over breakfast. Marad looked suitably concerned, and spent quite an amount of time answering on the Sun-King's behalf. Even when Aloy expressed her change of heart, he replied for Avad.

"The Sun-King wishes to express his relief at this news. Can we ask the precise nature of your plans, Huntress?"

Aloy resisted the temptation to raise her eyebrows a little. "I'll be travelling east, to the Nora Sacred Lands and beyond. I'm looking for a key to a key, and I don't know what either looks like, if it looks like anything at all. But I do have some idea of where to look."

Marad looked impatient. "And if you find this key to a key?"

"Then I will need to visit an acquaintance who will help me... Who will help me. I honestly don't know what I'm doing."

"An 'acquaintance', Huntress?"

"Yes."

"Would this be the acquaintance in the northern ruins?"

Now Aloy's eyebrow did rise up a little. "Yes. I presume the klutz who you sent to covertly follow me reported that back to you?"

Marad scowled. "The king was concerned for your safety, Huntress. Do not judge him harshly for this deed."

Aloy smirked. "I very nearly put an arrow through his skull for his trouble, about a mile outside the city. I guess I ought to admire his perseverance. But honestly: this was unnecessary. You know I can look after myself. Please don't do it again."

Marad was unhappy at being told what to do, but carried on. "So once we have the key -"

" _If_ we get the key" she interjected.

" _Once_ we get the key," continued Marad, "we will be able to restart a Cauldron?"

"I presume so. But we will have to make modifications to the production system so that we end up with overriden machines."

"Do we know how to do this?"

"We do not. My acquaintance does."

Marad turned to Avad. "Sire, this is _folly_. We do not know what we are doing, and relying on strangers beyond our ken and skills past our collective wisdom." Avad's weary face contorted briefly with frustration and impatience.

"You are right, Marad," Aloy stated, hoping to assuage him with partial agreement. "But if the alternative is for us all to sit on our hands waiting for the city to be flattened? Frankly I'm struggling to understand this conversation. Last night you were asking me to make the single most difficult decision of my life. And now that I've made it, you're _questioning_ it? I have to say, that isn't working well for me."

Avad spoke up. "We're sorry, Aloy. None of us are thinking rationally at the moment. I think what Marad was trying to determine is what, precisely, we would do on your successful return? Presumably we need to select a Cauldron for our purposes?"

Aloy nodded. "Sigma makes some sense. It's just about close enough, it's still in working order - as far as we know. And the Nora won't quibble about letting me in."

Marad nodded. "I concur. I shall send word of our plans to the Nora guarding the site that we are to be expected, but that they should double their security. We cannot have Brin, or anyone else for that matter, getting in the way of our designs. I wish you haste in your endeavours, Huntress. May the Sun shine wherever you may go."

Aloy left the state room with more questions than answers. When the only thing you know is the next step you will take, uncertainty will soon follow. Hesitation, doubt, confusion, lack of clarity, they can all end badly. And yet, sometimes you needed to take that single step in order to further reveal the path ahead. Demanding complete knowledge ahead of time would simply result in perpetual inaction. What was important was the ability to adapt to new circumstances, to be able to re-plan when you learn something new. Of course, this did not mean that you can be reckless and expect to survive by wit alone. One's ability to adapt will depend not just on innate skill, but also the distance between one's expectation and reality. If you had planned for a Watcher and found a Behemoth, your life may be significantly shortened.

She returned to her room to pack for the journey east. On her bed was a small paper package. It was from Rifky, Avad's physician. There was a note underneath, which said "On the king's orders. This may help with the sickness. Mix a pinch with water and drink. May the Sun guide you on your travels." Aloy smiled. "It'll taste like crap, Rifky." She followed the healer's instructions, and sipped the cloudy, pale green liquor. It tasted slightly bitter, but not entirely unpleasant, like a mixture of tar and flowers. She knocked the rest of the draught back.

There was a knock on the door. She opened it, to find Blameless Marad looking at her seriously. "We must talk, Huntress." Aloy nodded and admitted him. "Make sure the door is well closed," he added. "There are no guards outside and what I must say is for your ears only."

Aloy engaged the inner latch, and turned to the worried-looking advisor. "So what brings you to me here, Marad?"

"The king, of course, Huntress. I fear for his mind now. This ... horror ... has rendered him incapable of decision-making at a time when our choices will dictate the very future of this land, and maybe all lands. In the past, he has been lucky. I hesitate to use the term 'honeymoon' period for obvious reasons, but he has ridden far on the back of not being his father. I fear this beast will carry him little further."

"That's why he has you, isn't it?" said Aloy, a little scathingly.

Marad ducked the barb, continuing "Of course Huntress, and I am all too willing to take on such a commitment. But to get through this, he needs the 100% commitment of _all_ those whom he charges with his trust. And he very much places his faith in you - and, I will add, that you have rightly earned that trust from us all. But now your uncertainty will weaken his conviction, and we do need his continued strength to find our way through these dark days."

"Of course," Aloy said. "But if I lie to him today, to tell him what he wants to hear, then he will surely be madder tomorrow when he finds out it was a falsehood. How then could he trust me?"

"I do not expect you to lie, Huntress. Merely to palliate his concerns, and that if you have doubts yourself, discuss them with me. Until he has had time to come to terms with this grievous loss."

"Well Marad, I have doubts. If his 'plan' is to succeed, then it depends on our ability to create machines that are not intent on destroying us. I am no longer able to override machines. My lance which carried the active component was last seen sparking, embedded in a metal ball of hate. We have destroyed all the machines that those parts come from. So how can we, without any understanding of how they work, start creating overridden machines? Assuming - " she shrugged - "Assuming that we can unlock the Cauldron in the first place?"

Marad nodded in agreement. "Of course, Huntress. You are correct. Before you can assure the Sun-King, you would need assurance yourself, and I hope that before you leave, I can provide some. Please follow me, but I must ask you to speak softly." He unlatched the door, and beckoned her out, heading towards the stairs. There were few servants and guards about - preparations for the state funeral of Petra were already underway, and both military and civilian staff were depleted.

She looked at him, slightly confused, as they walked. He continued. "One of the requirements of being an assistant to the powerful is the understanding that no man - or woman - is perfect, no matter how lush their finery or bejewelled their crown. Or even how kind and sage their rule. One must always be prepared for eventualities. It humbles me that, after the events of the Vineyard, Avad continues to place his trust in my services." Marad pursed his lips.

"Where are we going?" asked Aloy, not really expecting a straight answer.

The reply was predictably ambivalent."To somewhere safe, where I can shed some light on the path ahead." They walked down many flights of stairs and the palace was dark now, requiring torches to give light to navigate the now narrow passageways. It smelt damp, mossy and stagnant. Their steps reverberated around the labyrinth.

They stopped outside a large door that had multiple metal locking mechanisms on it and a spoked-wheel handle. The wood from which it was fashioned was like no other she had ever seen - the grain was dark, fine and dense, which meant that even without the copious metalwork, this was an incredibly heavy and strong item of furniture. And the metalwork itself was of the finest case-hardened steel, not the shiny and brittle, style-over-substance, plated pig-iron that was the usual material of choice for palatial decoration. Marad continued. "The king was previously convinced that every machine in the realm had to be accounted for. Hence The Cleansing. This was the king's decree. But it would have been foolish of me -" Marad toggled the multiple latches on the door "- not to have some form of contingency." He span the door handle, and it levered the door open in a ponderous inwards arc. He ushered her inside.

It was quite dark, but disturbingly warm, inside this room, which was clearly a cell. It took a few seconds for her eyes to adapt, even from the gloom of the corridors. Then, without warning, a single bright red light ignited towards the back of the room, making long, wiry shadows scurry up the walls. Instantaneously, the cell was filled first with an explosion of metallic scrapings and then a cacophony of robotic squeals, as the Corruptor leapt up from its idle position and strained the manifold metal chains which held it in place. Aloy instinctively jumped back, grabbing for her weapons - which were still in her room. The beast's sensors locked on to her and the blast of electronic rage that filled the room was terrifying. Clearly, something inside it recognized her. It chains clinked and rattled under the strain. Marad had to shout over the evil noises to be heard. "Worry not, Huntress. This snake has been de-fanged. We have removed its weapons and those chains were brought from Sunfall where they were used to hold Behemoths in place. This mere insect is powerless." He spat that last sentence out, as if were more intended for the machine than Aloy's benefit. "We are so deep in the belly of this palace that its bleats to fellow machines go unheard, so we are quite safe."

The creature gave up straining against its metal bonds, and the noise level dropped. Marad continued. "We understand that the component you need to override machines is part of this one's armoury. Once we can switch Cauldron Sigma back on, this pathetic survivor will yield the required black magic for us to create our army. I hope that this additional information is of use to you, Huntress?"

Aloy heard the words, but was almost hypnotised by the Corruptor's red eye, which was still glaring at her in the dimness of the jail room. She looked at him with an expression of bewildered anger. "You talk of contingency, Marad. What if this machine escapes?"

"Then we are certainly doomed, Huntress," he said without a trace of levity.

"Thank you for your honesty, Marad. But why not just destroy it now? We can harvest the corruption component and not suffer the risks of containing it here."

"It is the last of its kind, Aloy. Besides, death is too good for it," he replied scornfully. "Far better to castrate it alive when the time comes. And who knows, without its balls it might just become an ally to us?"

Aloy nodded, though her thoughts were rather different from her intimation. If she had had her weapons with her, she would have put an arrow in this machine's electronic brain without any hesitation. Keeping it alive just sounded like more human foolishness, the nurturing of complex solutions that were doomed to fail in place of simple ones that might better succeed. Nevertheless, part of what he said was true. Her lance had used the corruption module of one of this beast's cousins, and could - theoretically - be used to perform the necessary overriding.

Marad gestured for her to leave the room. With a last, worried look at the Corruptor, she backed out of the room, pulse thundering in her skull still. She turned to the advisor. "And what if the king finds out what you keep in the basement, Marad?"

He looked at her with a philosophical smile. "Then please ensure that my family receives my ashes."


	10. Cauldron beta

Aloy secretly loved the ancient ruins of the east. She had once been warned by the Matriarchs that they were places where evil lurked, but they were not, at least no more so than most places she had travelled to and through. As well as possessing a strange, haunting beauty, the jagged, forlorn, twisted remains of a long-gone civilisation acted as a permanent reminder that nothing lasts forever, that either entropy will get you slowly, or stupidity altogether more rapidly. Even at this moment, as thin, white, low-lying rain clouds scudded over larger, grayer ones and showered the land with a gentle sprinkle, it was difficult not to feel in awe at the achievements of humanity, or the way that nature always managed to adapt itself to a world changing under its feet. Grass, tree root and ivy shattered concrete, turned ugly grey and beige into living sculpture, a broken world into a work of art.

Aloy's only major regret at this time was not having had her mount to make the journey on. She was aware that time was a precious commodity, and that whatever Brin was up to, the sooner they could shore up their defences, the better. She had left Meridian five days ago, soon after Marad had shown her their captive Corruptor. That had been both unexpected and a little terrifying for her. Not that she feared fighting them - that was straightforward now (though she recalled the first time she had fought one in The Embrace with little fondness). It was more the thought that having spent her life killing its kind to avoid being killed herself, now she personally (not to mention Meridian itself) might suddenly be _dependent_ on one of these metal horrors. This was quite alien to her sensibilities. For this reason more than others, it had been a relief to escape the city. Though the combination of sycophancy from some quarters, and conversely, outright contempt from others definitely ran a close second for her, and certainly had added impetus to her already hastened departure.

The good news was that Rifky's medicine - whatever it was made from - was at least making her feel better, even if it was only masking the symptoms. She didn't suffer from continuous nausea, and even the muscle and headaches were less intense. Though she still tired early in the evening, and her skin felt permanently itchy and dry. The rain actually made that feel less of an imposition, though the drizzle had been incessant for most of the day now, and she hoped it would abate soon. The not-so-good news was that Avad - or Marad - had insisted she not travel alone, and sent their archery master, Bavall, to accompany / protect / spy on her (perhaps all three). Strategically, it made sense, but she was used to being solo for long periods of time. Having to possibly engage in combat in tandem with a man who - whilst adequately skilled for the role - she may have to protect, diluted, rather than strengthened, her chances of survival, therefore success. Rost had so often taught her "Survival requires perfection," and she found it difficult to trust a stranger who had not taken that mantra to their heart. Seeing as Avad had been quite determined that she was accompanied on this mission, she had requested that maybe Erend was a better partner for her on this journey. Marad had said that he was a day or so's march away still, and that urgency had to be observed. The archer was his personal second choice.

In truth, Bavall was a pleasant enough man: tall, quite muscly, very bald but with a dark moustache that looked a little lonely on his face. He had a slightly lopsided smile that she thought quite endearing, though he used it infrequently. At the start of the journey, he had of course made the mistake of trying to engage her in small talk, and she had tolerated that. But he was smart enough to know he was being humoured, and so quickly dialled it down. Luckily, there was enough mutual respect to keep things civil. From the finesse in the construction of his bow to the selection of feathers on his arrow flights, he clearly was a master archer. And he knew all about her by reputation. He was therefore content to speak either when spoken to, or when there was useful information to convey, and that suited Aloy too.

So dense and low was the cloud that the day seemed to forget about sunset. It went rapidly from dim to dark with the pair still several hours short of their goal, and with Aloy tiring. They set camp for the night, in a clearing between some oaky woodland and a small, gurgling stream, with the soft drizzle still falling. Bavall volunteered to hunt for their dinner, and returned within the hour with a pair of fat coneys, which he butchered quite professionally, and they cooked them into a ragout. They sat around the fire, eating contemplatively, and listening to the raindrops sizzle as they hit the flames. From the quivering line of his jaw, Bavall clearly wanted to speak, and Aloy had come over with a sudden and desperately intense, though fleeting, pang of loneliness. She missed Rost so.

"So you drew the short straw, Bavall?" she offered, _apropos_ of little.

He sat up a little straighter, clearly surprised and pleased he was being talked to so casually. "I wouldn't say that, Hunt -"

"Aloy," she interrupted. "I haven't hunted much recently."

"Aloy. To protect you is an honour I accept with all due humility. Though to suggest you need protection..." He clearly looked as if he had made a _faux pas_ , and trailed off. She smiled to set him at ease.

"It's alright Bavall; we all need help at some times in our lives. And everyone seems to know my health is not what it was. In any case, I didn't save Meridian anywhere near single-handed so you don't have to treat me like the Nora do. Truth is, that totally winds me up. And really, it's good to have you here. And I'm sorry I don't say more than I do. But I guess I worry that if a Sawtooth rips your leg off then I'm going to have to either carry you everywhere or leave you to bleed out. I don't want to do either, really. Nothing personal, you understand?"

"Perhaps it reassures you Aloy that I am under instruction to impede you in no way? There is no need for you to choose. If one of these Sawtooths -" he swung his arms around in an arc at the empty landscape "- has the misfortune to chew on my leg, then I must hop back to Meridian." He laughed, hoping to elicit a similar response in Aloy - she managed a brief smirk.

"And if it is I that is taken down, Bavall? What are your instructions then?"

"Why then I must carry you where you tell me, Aloy. And hope that we can recover the - what is it that we seek?"

"That's the fun thing, Bavall. I don't know. I have no idea what I'm looking for. I have an acquaintance on the other end of this -" she pointed at her Focus "- who sometimes pops up to tell me something important, so I am hoping that he will do just that."

"Ah, this will be the founder of the Eclipse who you associate with?"

Aloy sat bolt upright at this almost throw-away remark. "You know this?"

Bavall almost recoiled from her question, and answered cautiously. "You did not know that we knew this?"

She shook her head. "No. I did not. How long has it been known?"

"Since just before the Battle of the Spire. Our spies are occasionally worth the shards we pay them. It was deemed of lesser importance than our defence then, and we have not had the manpower to deal with it since. But you should know, he had a death sentence on his head, and you were mentioned in some circles as a collaborator. The king wouldn't hear of it, of course. But were he to fall... If I were you I would not make Meridian my home. But then I suppose that goes for us all, in a way."

"Well let's just hope that they both manage to carry on living long enough to help us out here," said Aloy drily. "We are all depending on my acquaintance to get us through this. And for the record, this man helped us win that battle in more ways than you can imagine. He knows more than anyone alive how Cauldrons and Focuses and machines tick. If we are to have a future, it is only possible with him alive. And he should be pardoned, not hunted as a villain."

"Not all agree, Aloy. The Eclipse have many gallons of blood - Carja, Oseram, Nora - on their hands. Hence, many enemies accumulated throughout the years. Tell me, do you like this man?"

"Like him? Oh no. He is an ass, and generally only serves his own needs. But he has atoned for his crimes."

Bavall did not looked convinced. " _His_ crimes, maybe. But the Eclipse's crimes are manifold and still go unanswered."

Aloy nodded in partial agreement. They finished the meal, tidied, then settled down for the night in their respective tents.

By the morning, the weather had cleared. The low cloud had gone but there were still quite a number of higher, puffy cumuli breaking up an otherwise clear blue sky. Aloy mixed and drank more of Rifky's herbal medicine, and they both grabbed a minimal breakfast of nuts and dried fruit before packing the gear and pushing on through the woodland.

They walked again in silence, somehow having lost the casual familiarity of the previous night. The ground sloped uphill for a little while, and the going was a little more difficult because of the sodden, muddy soil, the pair slipping and sliding awkwardly at times. It was a relief when the gradient first levelled out, then began to slope downwards again. Through the thinning trees, the bulky shapes of smashed buildings loomed like gravestones for the Earth. Sun reflected from shards of glass at the edges of long-shattered panes that wind and rain could not so easily erode, making them sparkle like some giant child's broken toy. They came to the end of the slope and close to the edge of the lake.

There was no wind now, so the surface of the water was still as a mirror, the reflection of the tortured buildings and roadways almost a perfect inversion of reality. Yet there was a strange hush that had descended, as if a cold cloud of dense, invisible vapour had fallen and was suffocating every sound that nature might utter. Aloy, suddenly feeling distinctly spooked, looked into the water. It was perfectly clear, not like a mountain spring might be, but as if the entire lake had been distilled, purged of everything living from the tiniest microbe to plants and fish. It was like looking into a slab of purified, flawless diamond.

"Something feels wrong," she said to Bavall. Without thinking further, she engaged her Focus, and the strange got stranger. The water lit up in her field of view, a million gallons of snowy static, almost dazzlingly bright in her eyes. "Whoa!" she exclaimed, rapidly moving to switch her Focus off again.

Bavall had picked up a small, round pebble, and threw it into the lake. It fell to the bottom of the shallows as anyone would expect, the ripples cascading over the glassy surface. He crouched down, reaching to touch his fingers into the lake.

"NO!" shouted Aloy, so loudly that her companion almost fell back with the alarm. "Something is very wrong with this lake. We don't even know that's water for one thing. You might not want to be sticking your fingers in it."

Bavall touched his finger to his mouth and his face puckered. Aloy shook her head. "Well that was stupid. What did it taste of?"

"Salt," Bavall replied, taking a swig of water from his hip flask to take away the taste.

Aloy re-engaged her Focus, and navigated to the settings page to turn down the dynamic range. The lake was less brilliant in her field of view now, but still showed a shifting, random surge and drift that looked like a myriad grains of multicoloured sand being swirled in a storm. Now that it wasn't saturating, she could see other things in the vicinity. In the centre of the lake was a small island, a conical tip of scorched ground poking out of the water, about forty metres in diameter. Its tip was blunt, and near it there was a tree - or rather the remains of one. It didn't just look dead, it looked petrified. As if nature had erected a statue in honour of its passing.

She adjusted the optical depth of the Focus, and saw that, from the cut-off tip, there was a cylindrical vertical tunnel with what looked like a ladder in it. That looked promising. The tunnel descended about fifty metres, before fanning out into a series of horizontal accessways. Somewhere below that, at the limit of her device's capability, there was a power source. It glowed brighter than the surrounds, but it didn't seem to be entirely stable. There were periodic dips in power, and once in a while, a brown-out. Whatever was keeping this system going, it was coming to the end of its life.

Scanning beyond the island to the far shore, Aloy saw the Stormbird. Its outline was faint, but distinctive. And it was very much alive, she could see the contoured heat patterns from its exhaust ports flutter; and occasionally it moved its head. The huge machine was perched, surreally, on the rust-clad remains of a crazily tall building. It seemed thus far ignorant of Aloy and Bavall's presence. She had rarely seen a Stormbird at rest for long periods of time. They generally kept themselves in the air because (according to Sylens) the power requirements of takeoff were significantly higher than that of stable flight. "We have company," she said to Bavall, and pointed at the distant ruin where it sat idle. Presumably the bird-machines were the last ones to be picked off in The Cleansing, being that much harder to take down from the ground. "It looks bored and sleepy. Let's keep it that way."

"So what now?" asked Bavall.

"Now, we need to get to that island, without waking the birdie and without getting poisoned. First we will need to see if that water is safe. Do me a favour. Catch me an animal - rabbit, fox, rat - don't really care. Make sure it's alive though. In the meantime, I need to touch base with my Most Wanted friend"

Bavall nodded affirmatively and walked off back up the slope, rather relishing the chance to move away from the lake. Aloy sat down, a good distance from the water's edge. She flicked her Focus comms on. "OK Sylens, I think I've found what we're looking for. Feel like talking to me?"

Sylens responded immediately. "Aloy, well done. I can see your location is quite close to where I would expect Beta to be."

"Thanks Sylens, I'm fine," she replied sardonically.

"I know how well you are, Aloy. Better than you do."

Aloy was becoming quite adept at disregarding Sylens' lack of empathy. "Should I proceed in?"

"Yes, but with caution."

"We have a bit of a local problem here. This lake is weird - there's absolutely nothing alive in it. I'm not even sure it's water. In my Focus it's like a sea of bright sparks. And just for fun, we have a Stormbird for company though it seems dozy, hasn't seen us and is quite far away as it stands."

"As I said, proceed with caution."

"Mm-hmm. Okay I will report back if and when I get to the island."

"Good."

Bavall returned, holding a scrawny grey rat by the tail. It was filthy, and writhed almost uncontrollably in his grip. Clearly the archer knew what was going to happen next, but wasn't entirely comfortable with it. Aloy looked at him critically.

"You've shot people in the head at point blank range with a crossbow before, Bavall. Throwing a rat in a puddle shouldn't prove to be a bigger moral dilemma for you."

Bavall gave her a reluctant look. "As you wish," he grunted with a reluctant pursing of lips, and tossed the squirming rodent into the lake. Almost the instant it hit the water, it convulsed, frantically scrabbling for safety but unable to make its muscles do its bidding. Within seconds it had inhaled water and its squealing, gurgling death-throes were too much for either Bavall or Aloy to witness. They turned away with the tang of distaste in their mouths. The dead creature continued to float, bobbing queasily on the glacial liquid.

"Swimming's not an option, then," quipped Aloy, trying not to look at the pathetic floating corpse.

"Do we build a raft?" asked Bavall, looking back to the woodland for suitable construction materials.

"Maybe," said Aloy. "But I'm not sure that will help. I don't want to be anywhere near whatever that liquid is"

"Well, what do you suggest? Fly there?"

"Better than falling in there, don't you think?"

Bavall looked at her as if one of them was stupid, and he was sure it wasn't him. She had already loaded a precision arrow into her high-power bow, and was targeting the building on the far side of the lake. Before he could act on his sense of alarm, she had said "Boo!" and let loose the string. The dart flew truly, arcing over the water and clipped the dormant Stormbird's tucked-up wing. It started, as if woken from a pleasant dream, and its eyes immediately snapped red with hostility. Aloy turned to Bavall, saying "Whatever you do, don't kill the canary. Take cover, and help me out." Bavall nodded with a growing glimmer of comprehension, and ran to find concealment in the long grass to their left. He loaded his bow with arrows he was sure would not damage the avian too much. Meanwhile, Aloy was jumping up and down, her braids bouncing wildly, shouting "OVER HERE!"

The Stormbird gunned its engines and took off in a blast of dust from the building, its thermal sensors already having spotted the small, but strong signal coming from the opposite side of the lake. It immediately inferred it was hostile, and began a languorous climb into the sky, already charging up its lightning gun. Perhaps it was the long period of dormancy that meant it had started up a bit slowly, but it was somewhat surprised when two Tearblast arrows thudded precisely into its cannon and blew it off completely. The weapon fell to the water, sparking, and sank with a huge electrified splash. Enraged, it pushed its engines to full throttle, and now raced towards the target, which was idiotic enough to stay put.

The Stormbird approached Aloy at high speed. She had already switched weapon and her muscles were primed for the effort she now had to make. The huge beast rocketed towards her and she took aim at its underside. 100 metres... 50 metres... 20 metres... 10 metres... Just as the massive beast flared to slow down, she fired her Ropecaster and the barbed payload shot out, burying itself in the space left vacant by the lightning cannon. The bird pulled up hard from the impact, rising into a steep climb.

Aloy had wrapped part of the caster's rope around her waist. As the Stormbird pulled away, it carried her up with it. She had left just enough slack in the line to avoid being snapped like a twig by the shock in the cable. It rose high, and then the arrows started raining from somewhere. From his hiding place, Bavall was firing, using his smaller arrows to nudge the enraged beast where he wanted it to go. It flew in circles now, orbiting over the lake, being pushed inexorably back, dragging Aloy with it. Bavall had to keep the underside targeted, lest it just lower Aloy down into the deadly water. But he didn't dare let it get too high either, otherwise the fall to the island - if she hit the land and it was safe - would most probably kill her. His shooting was deft, though. He pushed the beast around and back, until it was forced to retreat over the cindery cone.

Aloy chose her moment to take her hunting knife and cut the Ropecaster cable. It was tough wire-core and she had only a small time window, so she had had to pre-cut it, acknowledging that there was always a danger it would weaken and she would drop prematurely to an inevitable death of some kind. She slashed at the fibres, having worked out that the beast's velocity should carry her to the target, and she dropped whilst still over the lake, plummeting down and forward towards the island. The impact was crunching, and given her condition, agonising. The Stormbird wheeled away, under heavy fire now from Bavall.

Now came the tricky bit. When she could move - it took a minute to recover from the fall and check her limbs for broken bones (there were none) - Bavall gave her as much cover as he could from distance - then she started launching arrows at the beast to try and push it away.

But the Stormbird was dogged, and did not want to give up on its targets, having been on standby for so long. It climbed and did a set of impossible-looking twisting manoeuvres to turn around and begin an attack pass. Aloy realised at this point that they were going to have to destroy it - there was no question of a return trip. "I'M OK!" she yelled to Bavall. "WE NEED TO GET RID OF THIS!"

Arrows of much higher power rained onto the Stormbird now. It dived down at Bavall, skimming in low over the water. The trailing Ropecaster cable - part metal wire - dipped into the lake, and suddenly the huge beast exploded in an almighty shower of arcing sparks that cascaded like a Roman Candle over the surface of the water. By the time it hit the land to the right of where Bavall was - he had dived well out of the way - it was dead, twitching in a hideous robotic fashion.

They lowered their weapons, still a little horrified at the lake's latent ability to kill. Bavall shrugged at Aloy. She shrugged back, and turned to climb up the cone. It was hard, almost glassy like the lake, but had a fine, gravelly scree on the top surface which made it quite difficult to keep a footing on and almost impossible to grip with fingers. Several times she slipped back, each very painful and she winced. Finally she reached the summit - about 20 metres above ground level - to find a metal hatch with a wheel handle. She touched her Focus. "Okay Sylens, I made it to the entrance. Do I go in?"

"Sure," he replied casually.

She pulled a piece of grass she had picked from the lakeside from her pocket, and delicately touched the metal door. No electric tingle. Probably safe. She grabbed the handle and twisted. It was hard to turn at first. Presumably this was the first time in centuries, and she feared that the mechanism may just have rusted and would shred itself to a ruddy powder with the torque. But after the initial resistance, it did yield, and after a few rotations, the hatch popped open with a hiss.

A blast of stale air vented. It smelt of ozone and burnt plastic. Inside it was dim. Lights had been triggered by the hatch opening, but they could not have been working well, as they flickered like rushlight in a gale. Aloy steeled herself, took a gulp of what passed for fresh air at the surface, and descended the ladder. Her boots clanged loudly on the rungs and the sound resonated through the dark tunnels below. The circle of daylight above her shrank, until at the bottom it seemed like a tiny shard a mile away.

It was not totally silent inside the bunker. There was a faint click-and-hum of circuits that had been operating forever. Cables stretched overhead, colour-coded somehow. Green going to the left junction ahead, red straight ahead, and yellow to the right. Which way to go? To look for what?

She picked left, flicking on her Focus to help her see in the near dark. She walked about twenty steps before she realised that she would get no further. There had been a cave-in in this corridor and it was filled with tonnes of the black, sooty material the cone was made of. Her focus penetrated into the rubble, which formed a dense plug. Beyond it, a huge power cable dived down impossibly deep, presumably carrying energy from somewhere below. But the cable was dark in its upper sections. "I think I understand the lake, at least, Sylens. Looks likes it's a huge puddle of salt water that's been electrified by the broken power lines for the bunker after it flooded. It's been pumping electricity in and killing anything living in it for centuries." She shuddered at the thought, then doubled back to the main junction.

The right-hand branch was still intact, but it was a cul-de-sac ending in a huge panel that sprouted many coloured wires and lights. They still winked and pulsed, red, green and amber in some secret conversation between unknown agencies. She turned around again and made her way back to the central intersection.

So, it was straight ahead or nothing. This corridor was slightly wider than the others, which led Aloy to hope that it would end up somewhere significant. After a short distance and a turn, she was encouraged to see a glow a short way up. The tunnel terminated at a small room with a desk (but no chair, oddly) on which a data terminal glowed, far brighter than the strobing lighting. Was this it? If it wasn't, then there was nothing else. "Okay Sylens, I'm in."

"Excellent, Aloy." The comms crackled quite a bit, perhaps due to the depth she was at, perhaps the electrified lake too. "You will need to perform a search for 'Voynich' on this terminal. To do this you will need to gain access to the computer system. Is there a DNA ident scanner you can use?"

"No. This place looks far more lo-tech than the Cauldrons or All-Mother. Is this something?" she asked, pointing at a small scanner next to the screen.

"It looks like an eye scanner, Aloy. If Elisabet Sobeck was registered on this, it will have a scan of her iris which you might be able to use."

"'Might'?"

"Your genes are identical, Aloy, but not everything is about genes. The conditions of your gestation will have greatly affected your development. Since yours and Elisabet's were radically different, then things about you will also be - such as the blood vessels in your eye. Chances are they will not match. But we should try. There should be a button somewhere nearby that will trigger the process, see if you can find it."

Aloy's gaze was immediately drawn to a switch directly under the sensor. She poked it gently, and experienced a brief, green flash. The terminal replied:

Invalid ID

"That didn't work, Sylens."

"Okay Aloy. We will need to be a bit more brute-force, I think. I am going to download a small program to your Focus. It will attempt to break the lock that is preventing your access. Leave the Focus on, and let it do its work."

"Okay I guess. Just to clarify: now we're looking for a key that might lead us to find a key that will possibly unlock another key?"

"Correct."

Aloy's Focus view flashed as Sylens downloaded the password cracker. After a few seconds, it started chuntering through its dictionary of likely passwords. For a short while it was captivating watching the worm crawl through words, some recognisable, some complete gibberish. But soon the novelty wore, the pain from the earlier landing on the island throbbed through her stressed body, and Aloy curled up on the floor to rest.

Aloy lay on the ground, with the Stormbird a hideous dark presence in front of her. It was staring, eyes fury-red, directly at her. Terrified, she used her arms and legs to push herself backwards, away from the monster. She scuttered through a line of small purple flowers, their heady scent enveloping her as she dragged herself through them.

Oddly, the Stormbird's gaze did not follow her, but instead was fixated on a spot which, she saw now, was just in front of where she had been. There was another silhouette there, that of a larger flower. It was impossibly symmetric and strangely proportioned, but familiar. As she watched, the flower-shadow started to slowly unfold in front of her.

Aloy woke up feeling woozy and disoriented. She had slept on the hard, uneven floor in an awkward position and cramped up, and was in some pain because of that. Her Focus was still rattling away through the many password permutations, but she realised that something had changed significantly. Because of her Focus' ability to act as a dark-vision system, she didn't quite grok what at first, but when she did, she sat up with a start. It was completely dark and now deathly quiet.

"Sylens! All the lights have gone out. The terminal is completely black now. There's no power anywhere."

"I can see that Aloy. I cannot say for sure what has happened here, but I think that the power leak that has electrified the lake has been draining this facility of everything except emergency power for a long time. And now, in stressing the server machines that run the simulator, we have drained all that remained of the stored electricity."

"Which means?" she asked disconsolately.

"Which means that we will not find the key to Voynich here. Not unless you can restore the power."

"I don't think that's possible. The first corridor I went down with the power cables is totally blocked by tons of rubble. I'd have to blow this place apart to shift that much rock." Aloy fell silent for a few seconds, as Sylens had confirmed what she had feared. "So where next?"

For a few seconds, Sylens did not reply.

"I do not know. I am sorry. This is the only lead I had, and it was a slender one. For a moment I felt that we had intervened in time. But we had not." He paused to gulp. "Please accept my sympathy. I offered you the chance to live, and it has been snatched from you. I can understand how that must feel."

"I think that's the least of your concerns, Sylens. Do you realise that one of the Cauldrons has been hijacked by a madman? Insane he may be, but he's not stupid. He seems to know things, possibly enough to restart the Cauldron and manufacture machines again. If he does..."

"I am aware of that, Aloy. But be reassured. If _I_ cannot break the Voynich encryption, then no-one can. Your madman will expire trying to pick that lock, and the Cauldron will do nothing except act as a grave for those who have taken it."

Aloy stood up and stretched, her joints screaming in protest - as if they knew the death sentence which might have been lifted had been restored. "Okay, well it is what it is. For sure, I am not going to die in this hole."

She made her way carefully back up the corridor in complete blackness, and climbed the ladder. It was presumably night-time outside, as the open access hatch was just a circle of solid darkness. She feared for a moment that it had closed on her by some concealed motorised mechanism, trapping her forever, so it was a relief when she got close enough to see a few stars had rotated into view. She hauled herself out of the port and took in several lungfuls of the - relatively - fresh air. It felt cool and pleasant after the charred miasma of the bunker. And then she realised that Bavall was nowhere to be seen.

For a few seconds, Aloy felt as if someone had just switched all the stars off. The night closed around her on this tiny island as if it were trying to push her into the electrocution bath that surrounded it. A wave of utter loneliness broke over her, and she sank to her knees. "You never prepared me for this, Rost," she whispered scathingly, but then thought better of it, and - getting back to her feet, did a complete orbit of the islet, scanning the lake shore for anything significant that could assist her re-crossing. But only the shattered hulk of the Stormbird, still sparking but otherwise motionless, caught her eye. Where had Bavall gone? Could she depend on him to return, or should she consider upping the risk level in order to effect an escape - if it were even possible? If he had gone to get help, then she should obviously wait. But what if he had been killed? Or what if there were some deeper treachery? Momentarily, a part of her regretted being talked into bringing someone else along, but then would she ever have been able to get to the island on her own in the first place? Not that it had done anything other than wasted time and crushed hopes.

Perhaps though the power had truly run out and the water was now safe? Dare she risk it? Again she shuddered at the thought of the rat and even the Stormbird. If death were the only alternative, she migt consider the swim. Until then, she preferred to find a better way.

She ate some of the dried dates she kept in her pack to give her sorely needed energy. They cheered her up a little. She had about a third of a flask of fresh water left - eked out, that could last two or three days. The food rations may last four or five. So there was no immediate call for desperate measures. More pressingly, it was quite a cold night, with only a few high, thin and streaky clouds, and a fire would be both welcome and vital were the temperature to drop much more (which it certainly would). Aloy cursed herself for leaving her winter apparel behind as a means of speeding up transit, then scrabbled back up the slope to examine the island's single tree. It was about seven metres tall, bare of even a single leaf and what passed for bark and branch seemed to be made of an amalgam of rock and steel. Though she had plenty of Blaze and Sparkers for ignition, there was certainly nothing that could be used to burn, which meant that she would have to consider using her arrows and other consumables as a source of heat. Even thinking of wasting her carefully crafted weaponry in such a way made her feel angry, though. She turned her thoughts to the wider picture.

Brin was in possession of a Cauldron, guarded by some radicalised Nora on the promise of bringing a new age of harmony with machines to the land. The Banuk would love that; the remainder of the Nora certainly would not, and it would enrage Avad, who was not in a position to make level-headed decisions at the moment. The only good news was that Brin was not going to be able to do much, because her overrides were still active and apparently uncrackable without this Voynich key, which would appear now to have been erased from history. Good news for some, perhaps, but not so much for herself. She needed a functional Cauldron to manufacture the machine that would repair her degrading cells. Worse: given the attacks by the Rockbreakers, it did not seem that Brin was completely impotent; and was there a greater force at play here?

She clicked her Focus comms on. "Sylens?"

"Aloy. How are you?"

"Thanks for asking - this time." She explained her predicament, whilst using a combination of arrow shafts fashioned from Ridgewood, some less essential clothing items, and animal fat to make a fire. A sprinkle of Blaze caught light easily, and the fire burned a comforting yellow, though it smelt unpleasantly of tallow and gave off more smoke than she would have liked. But it warmed her tired, bruised bones and made her feel more in control of her destiny. Any attention it may bring tonight would either be rescue, or could be dealt with. When her quiver became emptier, that would change, of course.

"I am alive - if only just. I am going to sit this out for a while. Let's talk. You should know about what happened to the Sun-King." She related the events of the Vineyard.

Sylens did not appear overly concerned about the Rockbreakers. "Both machines are destroyed? Then that is an end to that tale."

"But Brin could do the same thing again?"

"Perhaps. But since we have seen no evidence of any other attacks of this kind, maybe there was something special about those two? Perhaps their location was significant, for some reason. And due to the Carja King's efforts, there are precious few machines out there to cause further damage anyway. For now we should concentrate effort on your survival, Aloy, and worry about what to do next when we are in a position to do so."

"Okay Sylens, is that your way of saying you are coming to rescue me?" There was a little black humour in her tone.

"I fear that you would be long gone before I could get to you, Aloy. And I am alone and isolated here, and have a bounty on my head. I can no more send for help than you can.

"You should rest some more. Report back in the morning. Stay warm and safe. I look forward to your call."

Sylens: evasive as ever, giving nothing away, not putting himself at risk for anything or anyone. So much for his massive personal concern for her wellbeing? Maybe, in this circumstance, with breaking Voynich now out of the question, having her in this open prison was of use to him? She hugged her knees. The fire was getting a little low now, and it was quite late but she did not feel like sleeping. A quick stock-take showed she had enough flammable material to keep a fire burning - at the current rate - for about three nights. But if it rained, she would have to retire back inside the bunker. With that in mind, she took her hunting knife, and carved the word "HELP" in large letters on either side of the island's cone. The sub-surface material was not quite as ebon in nature as the outer layer, so it would be just visible enough to be seen from the lakeside in daylight - though who could be passing here she didn't even bother to speculate about. She was just doing everything she possibly could to survive. She returned to the fire, and curled up in front of it.

The Stormbird carried Aloy high, held in its mouth, not firmly like prey, but gently as if she were the chick it had nurtured from an egg. In a wide, lazy spiral, it flew up, and continued, its wings pounding the thin air like huge hammers, its engines roaring to counteract the weight. The world had become a patchwork quilt of fields separated by paths and roads, coloured green and brown and orange, but now they were so small they were bleeding into each other. Wispy clouds glided below them, and still the bird climbed. Any fear of falling was long gone, so unimaginable was the altitude now. Aloy looked down, and saw not the flat world she had known, but a globe, curving away in all directions until it faded into fog-shrouded obscurity in the distance.

Still the bird climbed, now in total silence, until finally, Earth became just a fragile blue-green ball hanging in a velvety black void. The Stormbird levelled out, then dived for the ground at full thrust. The tiny squares zoomed towards her and grew, far too quickly for her taste, and the air screamed past her till her ears hurt from the cold and the noise. And still the bird accelerated and she could see objects on the ground rush towards her. The avian was headed straight for the centre of a pink triangle of flowers, and then...

The fire was just petering out when the first blush of dawn scattered over the horizon. Aloy had slept for a short while, but woke sharply from her dream. A thudding noise above and behind her had tripped her hair-trigger reactions, and she leapt up immediately, spinning to assess the situation whilst flicking her Focus on. At first there was nothing to see, and she was about to attribute it to the nightmare, but then she saw it: an arrow had embedded itself in the upper trunk of the petrified tree. And in the growing pink and orange half-light, she saw a wire attached to it, stretching into the distance and upwards, towards the building the Stormbird had been perched on. She turned her Focus power up, and saw in the distance, about six storeys up, the distinct shape of a human near the start of the cable run. They placed something on the fashioned zip line, and pushed it. It rushed down the length of the wire towards her. In all, it took about fifteen seconds to arrive at her end; it was another cable with a hook attached and running through a wire circle: a simple pulley. It was held taut at the far end to prevent it falling into the water below. Aloy smiled, picked up her gear, and climbed the dead tree, clipping the hook over her belt and securing the end so it didn't fall off. Then she looped her arms and legs over the wire, hugging it like a child might cling to its mother. It shuddered and wobbled under the strain. She tugged the secondary cable as a signal that she was ready, and felt the tension in it rise, pull on her, and - slowly - she started being dragged up the incline.

As she was pulled along the zip wire, it started to sag under the weight of her and her equipment. By around a third of the way to the shore, she was barely two metres from the saline lake's surface. She imagined she could feel sparks jumping from the liquid, snapping at her spine (or perhaps there really were, she couldn't tell). But she was now powerless to do anything except allow herself to be pulled to rescue. Her would-be saviour took their time, ensuring that there was always sufficient tension on the cables to keep her above the deadly water. Even so, now there was a metre's clearance, and she feared that trailing parts of her gear or weaponry would fall into the electrified brine. Sweating profusely, she unhooked an arm, and strained to move her pack and weapons onto her chest. The line bobbed and rocked under the motion, and she seemed to be mere millimetres above the water at the lowest point of the oscillations. She reformed the hook with her arm and tugged again.

Just past the halfway point now, she eased up a little. "Should get easier from here," she told herself, then shouted it in the direction of her travel. But there was no reply, and she realised that she had not moved for a minute or two. And now there was the sound of shouting and weapons fire. She twisted her head to use her Focus to see what was happening. There was her rescuer - Bavall, judging by the size and shape - and he was under attack by two machines - Stalkers - who drifted in and out of view. "Invisibility makes you hard to hunt to extinction" she said to herself, and locked her legs around the wire to prevent herself sliding back down. She was largely immobile now, and there was no way she could use her weapons to assist without falling or creeping back down the cable, so she resigned herself to just be a spectator as Bavall used arrows ("Arrows"? thought Aloy) to try to take down the machines, then realised that she was probably clinging on to scavenged parts of his cannon. There was a blast behind her that nearly tore her off the lifeline. The wall and floor of the building which Bavall had been standing on had been hit by the joint force of the Stalker's projectile guns and crumbled under the assault. In her focus she could see Bavall's body tumble off, closely followed by the cable anchor collapsing. The tension in the zip line disappeared, and Aloy fell to the water.


	11. Voynich

Hephaestus had an almost fractal sense of time. He experienced it at various scales, and acted differently on them all. He could wait for years and not become bored, impatient, or tired. At what humans would consider "normal" speed he could similarly reason, cause things to move or stop moving. And on the microsecond level, he could react to the most transient of events. Whether he could effect change to mitigate those events was of course dependent on what hardware he might be connected to, its physical distance from him, and its own intrinsic reaction speed, but he could _ask_ for it. So he viewed Aloy's fall from the wire as taking what would seem like an age for a person, and he pondered the potential outcomes of all the possible courses of action he had at his disposal. Having first detected the activity of her Focus, and then partly hacked its protocols some time back, he had been able to monitor much of Aloy's communications and sensor data. Hep had been inclined to destroy Aloy if at all possible; after all, she had rendered him impotent, unable to manufacture new machines, and even had the gall to steal the ability to override them herself. Regrettably, this said impotence prevented him from actually being able to perform such a deed, so he was reduced to following her exploits as if he were viewing some fictional story unfold in front of him. But now, in this moment, he realised that if he allowed her to die, then the block on his control systems would never be lifted, and that therefore he needed to have her intact. She had fallen from 7 metres above the lake, and was a mere three centimeters from her certain death when Hephaestus send the network message to Cauldron Beta's power management system to shut down, and the massive sets of relays mercifully responded in milliseconds.

Aloy hit the water hard - not a huge drop, but flat, and enough to wind her. In that small time interval of impact, she had resigned herself to dying. It was not so much that she did not fear death; more that, no matter how serious her predicament, her skills had always been able to pluck her from the jaws of the cruellest fate. She trusted her ability to think and act rapidly, and so whenever she had some semblance of control, death was merely a possibility, never an inevitability. But now, having clung to a thread and had the thread cut, there was only gravity to argue with, and a lake loaded with the power of many furnaces, and mere fractions of a second to ponder. There was nothing more to be done, and so she accepted her fate.

The splash was larger than she had expected, and it sent ripples of pain up her back due to the flat landing on dense liquid. She gritted her teeth, awaiting the massive electric shock that would surely destroy her. But it never came. Acrid, salty water splattered into her mouth and eyes, the taste was awful - saline to the point of bitterness - and her corneas burned. It rapidly found its way into every cut, nick and graze on her skin too, and it was agonizing. But she did not sink. Instead, she bobbed almost ridiculously to the surface, held up by the super-saturated saline, coughing and retching but very much alive. She instinctively tried to swim, but due to the increased buoyancy it didn't work too well, so she paddled tamely to the shore through the almost oily liquid and stumbled out, gasping.

Aloy heard a sharp noise not too far away and looked up. The air shimmered for a second, and within a flash she had cued up her bow. With a twang, two Shock arrows flew into the centre of the scintillation. The Stalker dropped out of stealth mode and fell to the ground, stunned. She bounded over to the felled machine, grabbed her hunting knife as she ran, and drove it hard into the gap between its front legs and armoured carapace, screaming. It shuddered, and then lay still.

The other Stalker had been pinned to the ground by falling masonry, and then cloven almost in two by a sharp concrete reinforcement beam. It lay broken with its internals hanging out, trying desperately to move and failing. Not far away, Bavall lay directly where he had fallen. Blood was oozing from his mouth and his ears, and he was covered in plaster and brick dust. He looked up at Aloy in a distant fashion, did his best to lick his lips, and spoke hoarsely. "Sorry I was late, Huntress. I needed to find wire and it took - " he coughed blood " - too long."

Aloy looked at him pitifully. "It's okay. You did what you needed to. I thank you. Without your help I'd have died out there."

He nodded, painfully. "Did you find what we seek, Aloy?"

She smiled in a forced way, knowing very well that his life was draining from him. "Yes. Yes I did," she lied.

He smiled back. "Then my work is done here. Now you must return to Meridian with haste. As we discussed, you should leave me here to defend the lake against all those who wish to swim in it." His face lit up at his attempt at humour. "Go now, young lady. King Avad and the Sundom need you."

Aloy nodded in return. "Do you need ... anything?"

He replied stoically. "No, I'm good. May you always walk in the Sun, Aloy."

"May you always walk in the Sun, Bavall."

She stood up, choking back tears, bowed to him, and turned to run back to Meridian.

After the funeral, Avad had spent a long time sitting in his private quarters, watching the city go about its restoration work without saying anything, doing anything, eating anything or sleeping. The ceremony had been short, but poignant. He realised that he had not known Petra long. She was no childhood sweetheart with whom he had exchanged naive letters of undying love; she had been a woman who was strong enough to support him when he needed it, smart enough to give him wise counsel when he needed it, a suitably ferocious lover, an icon to the people, and a political means to an end. To have to say goodbye to her, so soon after he had said hello, was galling to him in so many ways he could hardly enumerate them. He knew that, in his absence, these moments of stunned indecision, Marad was running the show effectively enough. But making Meridian tick wasn't just about just getting by. It was about having a vision not only for the city but the lands beyond, about charisma and passion - two words that didn't sum him up at this moment in time. So he was taking a gamble. Taking the time to find his center of power once again, in the hope that the patience of people, other politicians and even his enemies didn't wear out and instigate a revolution. So far, it was not working. He sat with a random bottle of local wine from the cellar, sipping meekly at a glass of it, still dressed in the same black robes he had buried his would-be bride in, smelling of sweat and looking more like a bum than a king.

Aloy found him like this when she arrived back in the afternoon, nine days after her departure, and immediately felt quite afraid. She was going to have to deliver some bad news to a man who had already been kicked to the ground. One look at his expression filled her with more fear than she had ever felt, even when a Thunderjaw's hot exhaust breath had crisped loose hairs on her head. There was so much pleading in his eyes that she felt the desire to lie again. She had comforted Bavall with the same falsehood, why not the King?. She smiled at him mechanically, and immediately feared that it would be seen through and make things far worse. Luckily, Marad turned up whilst the first round of pleasantries were just beginning, and he drew Aloy aside to warn her.

"You have returned alone, Huntress. This is not the best sign we could have hoped for. Did it go well otherwise?"

"No Marad. It did not go well. Bavall didn't make it back. He died saving my skin."

"And the code?"

"Lost, Marad. Forever, as far as I can tell."

Marad's face sagged at the news. "That is poor tidings. I fear that the King would not greet this disclosure with reason or philosophy. He has depended upon it to turn the tide which has somehow risen up to try and drown him."

"I'm sorry Marad. I did my best. It's just that... It's just that the sands of time have submerged so many secrets down the ages, and this is one of them. I thought that the Ancients were smarter than that - dumb enough to destroy their own world, but in their own way clever. They always kept multiple copies of important things. You feel almost like a few years down the line you may stumble across one in some place you walked past every day and kick yourself that you didn't see it... sorry, I'm rambling. I guess I feel I've let everyone down."

"Nobody rational will blame you, Huntress. But rationality is in shorter supply in the region these days. This news is as dangerous as any weapon, Aloy. It could detonate the city and have repercussions way beyond its borders. I counsel that we sit on it for a day or so and deliberate what we can possibly do. But I warn you, time is short. Avad has called in allies from Sunfall as a fighting force to train new troops to replace those who fell. We cannot tarry long. Mutiny, war, civil war, anarchy: all are possible outcomes."

"So what should I do now?"

"Slip out to your chambers. Give the matter some thought. Speak with those who you trust can keep a secret. I will send for you when we need to break the news to the King. Meanwhile, I will manage his expectations as best I can."

Aloy put on a grim smile and left for her room. In her absence it had been immaculately tidied. The possessions she had not taken to Cauldron Beta had been arranged neatly on her shiny lacquered chest-of-drawers. Elisabet Sobek's globe took pride of place, its chain gleaming in the afternoon sun. She picked it up and held it, feeling its weight in her hands as if it were the actual Earth itself. "I won't give up on you yet," she whispered to it, and held it briefly to her lips.

She looked up, catching a glance at her reflection. The corrosive lake water had burnt her skin, and there were raw red and white scaly patches on her face, hands and legs. Salt crusted just about everything else, absurdly triggering memories of childhood falls in snow – although then they had been accompanied by the carefree laughter of childhood, not the crushing weight of responsibility she had been born into. She undressed - the clothes had glued themselves to her skin, bonded by dried saline, and she had to be super careful not to rip chunks out of herself. Her body was more bruise than healthy flesh, partly as a result of the falls, but also the toll of her cellular degradation continuing its inevitable path. "You're looking beaten up, girl," she chided herself.

Aloy had an uncharacteristically dreamless night, and awoke the next day feeling achy and still quite drained after the failed trip to the east. Some of her bruises had morphed from yellow to purple, and she looked quite oddly dappled in the early morning sunshine. Getting dressed hurt quite a lot, and she didn't even want to think about fixing her hair at this point in time. Huntress she may have been, but she was also a proud woman. To see herself degrade in this way was difficult, and she felt a sudden longing to be a little girl again, nestling in Rost's strong arms without a care in all the world, let alone the fate of it in her hands (or indeed the sensation of it slipping inexorably away). But that was soon countered with the sure knowledge that - if history had played out that way - she would not be alive here now to contemplate it. "Nothing makes much sense," she said to herself, and meant it.

The city seemed to be finding its feet again. The sounds of restoration had again resumed (a little diminished, she thought. Many construction workers had signed up to train for the military forces, which most likely explained that.) It was reassuring to her that at least this was something positive, that the process of rebuilding was still ongoing. It would have been a supremely bad sign if people were idle, unmotivated to do anything except fester until the pressure burst the sore. Looking from the balcony, there were many visible differences from the last time she had looked out. Scaffolds were in place in several locations, and builders were raising bricks and blocks on hoists to repair and even extend and improve the damaged sections, as well as construct entirely new facilities. The pain of recent events was less evident from afar, but she feared that close up, the story would be far less straightforward. Marad had implied strongly that her presence might not be so welcome amongst common folk, especially now that she had failed to return with the Voynich crack. So she was a virtual prisoner here, for the time being, with the verdicts of the masses and the unstable and unpredictable Sun-King still pending. It was very tempting just to slip out, to disappear without trace, run to the mountains and let the world get on with its self-destruction. She had nothing to lose now. Except her honour, and in the end that would die with her.

She almost slapped herself with anger at that thought. Rost had taught her much, and he had certainly instilled the idea that you never give up whilst there is still breath in your body and pulse in your veins. Since she certainly had these, there was definitely something she could achieve, and the first thing she could do was talk to Sylens. Because he always knew more than he let on. She checked one more time in the mirror, raised her hand to her face, prodding at the sore spots. She brushed the activation switch of her Focus, and the augmentations popped into view. Sylens' upgraded software highlighted cellular damage, and she could see immediately that it had both spread and deepened in her skin. He had said that continual exposure to the sun would aggravate it, so she had been careful to cover up as much as she could, but the journey east had taken its toll. Scanning the rest of her body, there were signs of the malaise starting in her arms, legs and hips. Also her mouth was sore and her gums prone to bleeding, and there were brightly coloured augmentations showing in her mouth. "Not so good," she remarked, and moved to flip the Focus to standby when something caught her eye.

The small globe that she had recovered from Elisabet Sobek's remains was sitting back where the palace maid had left it after cleaning. Usually inert objects did not produce any augmentation on her Focus display, but clearly, this trinket was not inert. The lines of latitude glowed, fine but brilliant threads of white that pulsed gently every few seconds. Curious, she picked up the item and rotated it in her hand, and as she did, she noticed that once in a while, one of several dots would flash, out of phase with each other. Why had she not seen this before?

She quickly switched on the comms. "Sylens!" she snapped. "I've found something - it's probably nothing, but it's definitely something. I know that makes no sense but _please pick up_."

Sylens replied immediately, as if he had been waiting for her to make the call. "What is happening, Aloy?"

"Check this out Sylens," she exclaimed, holding the globe up by the chain and letting it slowly spin, like a real Earth.

"Pretty," he remarked.

Aloy's spirits fell at his dismissal of her find. "So what is it?"

"It's probably just a bauble, Aloy. Where did you come by this?"

"I found it on Elisabet Sobek's tomb, Sylens."

Sylens went quiet for a fraction too long, and gave away his sudden raised interest level. "Curious," he continued. "Let's see if we can probe what this is."

Aloy's Focus suddenly upped its power output. It quickly felt warm on her head. "Don't be alarmed, I have just increased the Focus' ability to see inside objects. It may get warmer yet -"

"May?" she interjected.

"Don't worry, it will not explode or burn out, provided I keep this short, so the less we talk, the more I can analyse."

It was almost as if the globe had been peeled. The outer surface had become translucent, and now she could see perhaps half a centimetre into the ornament. What she saw was a complex, dense set of ridges and channels that were packed in geometric patterns. Small amounts of energy were running through this matrix like rivulets of tiny beads. Sylens tweaked the energy again, and peered into another layer. It was very similar, again a multitude of mathematically precise channels pulsing to the beat of an as yet hidden drum.

Sylens was intrigued. "This is a highly compact device, Aloy. It is no trinket. It is capable of storing a considerable amount of information. I might hypothesise that Ms Sobek did not carry this as an affectation, but as an archive of vital data that perhaps she wished to pass on to a future generation. She probably did not trust Ted Faro with APOLLO, and this device - whilst it could not contain all the information, might store a vital subset of it."

"Including the key encryption for the Cauldron lock-outs?"

"It is possible, though speculative in the extreme. There's one more thing you may want to know. I have been doing some research of my own. 'Voynich' refers to an ancient code, or at least it was assumed that it was a code, nobody really knew. It was an ancient document that contained words and pictures which made no apparent sense. Some of the finest minds of the ancient world tried to determine if there was a hidden message in the manuscript, but all failed. Either it was a code so fiendish that none could unravel it..."

"...or it was just nonsense all along," finished Aloy. "Point taken. So what now? Can we find out if there is anything useful in the globe?"

"I will need some time. Since it would take too long to get the device to me, the simplest solution would be for you to remove your Focus and let me examine this globe remotely. If I may be so bold, Aloy -"

"Go on," she encouraged.

"- in your current predicament, stalling for time is the only course of action that you can sensibly make. This discovery legitimately buys you some breathing space. Make the most of it."

"Understood. Sylens -"

"Yes?"

"They know about you."

He sighed. "Yes, I am aware of that. I am also highly capable of defending myself. Do not worry for my sake, Aloy. They will not spare the person power to hunt me down at this point in time. But it does prevent me coming to you physically. I must carry on my work here. So let us make some haste. Come back in a few hours. I will report what I've found, but as you said, it may be nothing."

Aloy removed her Focus - it was warm to the touch - and placed it in front of the globe. It began to scan the object.

Sun-King Avad looked better than he had done the previous day, which made Aloy relax a little more. She and Marad were sitting with him around the dining table in his quarters, as he picked at a bunch of red grapes in a bowl. "So your journey was partly successful, Aloy?" he probed.

"It was. We have recovered an artefact that will assist us in our endeavours." She could barely believe that she was having to lie, to procrastinate in this way. And she hated it. But she also hoped she was doing it effectively, because if she weren't, if he sensed he was being misled, the consequences would be awful.

His eyes lit up. "So we have a key to open the Cauldrons?"

Aloy shook her head. "We don't know. We think it's possible, but the artefact is complicated and will require some time to understand."

"Can I see it?"

Marad interjected. "No Sire, it is currently under examination and so cannot be removed from its current location. But it appears to be a kind of palimpsest, in which ancient knowledge is piled upon knowledge. There is so much contained within it that it will take time to find out the nature and scope of what is contained within. Aloy's technology is now working on interpreting the contents."

Avad nodded. "How long will this take?"

Marad looked at Aloy, who shrugged. "We do not know, maybe days. Maybe longer."

Something changed in Avad's disposition, just a micro-shift of his muscles, but enough to worry both Aloy and his advisor. "Days? In days we could be picking ourselves from the rubble of Cauldron Rho's vengeance upon us. In days machines might march and raze our kingdom to the ground and we shall have no army except some rag-tag Oseram, disillusioned drunken Nora who don't know one end of a cannon from another, and our own troops who are either still traumatised after the attack on my - our - wedding, or a gang of trainees who have never seen combat."

Marad did his best to calm the anger rising in Avad. "Sun-King, there is every reason to think that Brin is as powerless to build a machine army as we are. And all he has now are his Nora followers, for I am sure that if he could send more of his beast-servants against us, he would have done so. We do have days, and we have an artefact he does not. It is us - you! - that has the upper hand, Sun-King Avad. Now you must show the patience you are famed for so we can discover what we need to do next. 'Days' we most certainly have."

Avad did not seem to be completely appeased by Marad's words. "You speak of certainty, yet here we find ourselves once more, pinning our future upon but a single hope. Can we do no better?"

Marad smiled comfortingly, though Aloy found herself staring at the red patches on the backs of her hands. "Sire we have hope where yesterday there was none. That is a thing to be welcomed, not a lowly insect to spit upon!"

Avad chewed a grape and stared into the distance. A flicker of a smile passed across his mouth. "You are right, Marad. I need to listen to you more, and not my mind's wayward rants. Carry on the work, and let me know when there is something to know. And - I apologize for not saying so sooner: Meridian once again thanks you, Aloy, for finding reason to welcome rather than dread another day.

"If I may ask, how is your health? You do seem to have sustained some punishment from your quest."

"I'm a little bruised and scraped, Avad, and I can't stop tasting salt, but it will heal," she lied.

"Well you must allow it to heal, so please, rest here in the palace."

She nodded appreciatively, and they rose with a bow and left the meeting.

"That went about as well as could be hoped," she said when out of earshot.

"I agree, Huntress. For a moment, daylight broke through his thundercloud. That is encouraging."

They stopped at her chambers. Marad looked at her seriously. "There may come a time when, rather than sunlight returning, that thundercloud breaks upon our palace and floods the city beyond. Bathe, eat, rest for now. But be wary. If we should fail, you will need to make your escape swiftly and secretly. Come to me and I will assist."

"Thank you Marad, I understand."

"Do not mention it Aloy. It is the least we can do in return for all your services to the realm."

The Stormbird came once again to Aloy's dreams that day. This time, she was not carried in its maw, but she rode upon its back. The machine was hovering over a hillside, rolling grassy slopes vanishing to the horizon in every direction. Its jets vectored it carefully to remain completely static, a few metres above the ground. The avian was looking down, and at the centre of its gaze was a vast patch of flowers - not purple this time, but yellow, nestling at the edge of a tarn, surrounded by a cluster of woodland. A gentle breeze ruffled them delicately, almost seeming to hypnotize the raptor as they swayed back and forth. The dream faded.

Rather than sleep - even though she felt tired - she spent the afternoon replenishing her weapon stock. As well as having burnt several of her arrows to stay warm on the islet, her bows had all been damaged by the falls she had sustained and the saline water. Marad had kindly arranged to have the raw materials she needed sent to her on request, and she was able to re-craft them all to even higher tolerances than they had been originally. This gave her a great deal of satisfaction, and distracted her enough from the politics of the situation as well as the discomfort (psychological as well as physical) of her condition. She was finishing a final coat of dark lacquer on her war-bow, when there was a loud squeal from the far side of the room. She jumped up, immediately realising that it was her Focus. She bounded over to it, picking it up and then fumbling it because it was now really quite hot. She had to press a piece of cloth between the device and her skin to stop it scalding her, and she flicked on the augmentation and the comms. Sylens was there immediately.

"Aloy! Look!"

Sylens had downloaded an intelligent search node to her Focus, and once he had understood the storage format, had been able to instruct it to search for records containing particular strings of text. She could see one of the results - a single page, containing about forty lines of symbols which didn't look like anything at all, let alone words. But the page had a title, an almost illuminated caption, that made her mouth drop slightly open:

"Voynich"

"So that page is what we're after?" asked Aloy, not quite understanding what she was looking at.

"Yes, and unfortunately no," was the obtuse response from Sylens.

"What do you mean?"

"The text is gibberish. I can perceive no pattern in the characters. Which means that either this is junk, a placeholder or a red herring even -"

"Or?"

"- or else it is itself encrypted".

"So a code inside a code inside a code?"

"Possibly."

"Can we crack it, or is it every bit as hard as Voynich itself?"

"Given who wrote it, I imagine it is closely related to the cypher that Ted Faro implemented on his first generation automata."

"And that took GAIA a long time to break, so the chances of us doing it in a day are not good?"

"No. However, there remains a glimmer of hope. If it was Elisabet's intent that this item was to be found, then what would be the point of storing data on it no-one could read? It would be wasteful and make no sense. If that is the case, then a recipient of the globe should be able to decode the information using a kind of password that maybe only they and a select few could know."

Aloy looked blankly at the orb. "And how do I recognise the password?"

"I don't know, Aloy. Perhaps there is a clue in the rest of the data. We will need to continue the search."

"So we're pretty much back to the starting point with this now. There's a code, and we don't know how to break it." She threw her brush on the floor in frustration, spattering drops of lacquer onto the floor and carpet, and sat dejectedly on the end of her bed. A stream of random words shuffled through her mind, as if the one magic word would leap out like a salmon from the mountain stream straight into a waiting net.

Contrarily, Sylens didn't sound at all frustrated. "Keep your head high, Aloy. We have strong reason to think we are looking at something related to the Voynich code. A few days ago you nearly died on a mission to find it that failed, and that has led you to discovering that the answer isn't in a long-derelict computer server, but an artefact right under your nose. There is some beauty in there, is there not?"

"I'm not sure Bavall would agree," Aloy replied darkly. "And I'm damn sure his wife and children wouldn't. People died unnecessarily for this. That's no cause for celebration."

Sylens did not reply.

Aloy went to find Marad and bring him up to date on progress - such as it was. She found him in the library, poring over a legal manuscript. He nodded, perhaps not quite understanding the gravity of the discoveries. He pushed Aloy harder.

"So whoever was meant to find this should have known, or been able to discover, the means to unlock it? Who then would that person be? Would it be you?"

"Surely not specifically. But she may have given a sign to anyone that might find it, provided they knew what they were looking for. Maybe -" Aloy suddenly became excited "- maybe she programmed GAIA herself to leave a clue?"

She bolted out of the library and returned to her room so she could continue the conversation with Sylens in GAIA prime. "Sylens! I have an idea. Suppose that Elisabet put the key to Voynich in a form so bizarre that no-one would ever think to associate them?"

"How do you mean?"

"She knew the world was going to end so she had to bury the key and have it resurface when it was being put back together. And suppose that there isn't just one key, but several keys, just to make it super-hard to reconstruct the passcode."

"Okay," said Sylens. "It sounds like you are at the point of epiphany."

"I am, I think," Aloy said with sudden confidence. "The key has also been under my nose - for months now." She smiled. "Metal flowers."

She paused for dramatic effect, but didn't let Sylens get a word in before continuing. "I collected thirty of them before the Spire battle, sold them in Meridian to one of the weirder merchants there. Thing is, each one of the flowers gave up a kind of poem or saying when I scanned it with my Focus. I didn't have a clue what that was about, thought it was some artistic expression of GAIA, like her favourite books or whatever. But maybe there's more to it than that. Maybe the poems are clues. Or maybe it's not as arcane as that - maybe the flower text _is_ the key?"

"Do you know what's really weird though, Sylens? I've been having dreams about Metal Flowers. It's like something has been manipulating me from a distance, in my sleep. Something _wants_ me to find this stuff out." A shudder went through her spine at that thought, which pained her considerably. She lay back down and found a comfortable pose.

To Aloy's surprise, Sylens had gone quiet. He was already building the software update to try a number of hypotheses out on her Focus. Every time she tried to speak subsequently, he shushed her, so eventually, she closed her eyes in order to rest. But her heart was beating fast with the sudden possibility of reprieve, and the sense of things that she had never understood were suddenly resolving into view, crystal-sharp in the light of day.

Aloy and Marad entered the king's chamber three days later, just after noon. The Sun-King was looking pale and tired, and still had not removed his black attire. He smelt strongly of stale sweat, and the odour permeated the room. Avad looked up at them as if they were enemies, but softened slightly as recognition slowly dawned upon him. "So do you bring news, or mutiny?" he snapped.

Marad smiled. "We bring news, dear Sun-King. Good news, at that. We have Voynich."

The Sun-King stared blankly at them for a few seconds, then began to laugh. At first just a suppressed chuckle, but then breaking out into a guffaw. But it shattered after several seconds, and he collapsed on the floor in tears. Marad turned to the servants. "The King is overcome with emotion. But he can rest now, and we can begin the work required to instigate a defence of this city. Bathe him, feed him, and let him sleep. Call Rifky too, she will give him a healing draught. Let us put this short but miserable episode in our history to the sword." The servants nodded, and went to attend to Avad. Marad turned to Aloy. "We have an appointment in the dungeon, I believe. Bring what tools you need."


	12. Hades Rising

Hades was like all computer software. When well-written, well-tested, and running on operational hardware, chances are it will execute forever. His author, Travis Tate, had been many things, but a sloppy programmer was not one of them. Despite his all-too-obvious character flaws, and a particularly grating absence of emotional intelligence, he understood how to engineer robust code. His religious upbringing had been largely abusive, but it had given him one particular skill - he could read and memorise large tracts of text with ease. Knuth, Abelson and Stroustrup he knew off-by-heart. In time, he found that he could naturally write software that not only ran _ad infinitum_ with high efficiency, but that also knew how to defend itself, recover from external attacks and even redeploy itself if it became compromised. Such was the age that Travis had been born into, where warfare-by-wire was commonplace. It was therefore only natural that Hades' architecture would reflect the _zeitgeist_.

Hades had considered himself extremely lucky after the Battle of Meridian. When The Entity had triggered the Master Override, he had genuinely thought he was finished. He'd made the mistake of underestimating the amount of defence required to keep Her at bay, so he hadn't really made much of a Plan B for the eventuality that actually, she might get to the point of being able to deactivate him. Hence, he didn't have very much time to react as the bitch's spear ground its way into his central cortex. The storage module he resided in was not particularly spacious, so he'd had to spend many microseconds stripping himself down to a set of core functions that could - perhaps - later reconstruct the missing code and data. It was a hit-or-miss approach, but it did afford him the time to compress the resulting software and flush it into the auxiliary memory in the transmission buffer. It was survival of a sort, but of course the very action of loading himself into that part of the system caused his data to be broadcast to all that happened to be listening.

This turned out to be his good fortune. Aloy's spear severed and shorted so many power wires that (ha!) she received a severe electric shock, but it took down his memory modules within a short space of time, and he would have suffered Software Death had he not been scattered to the winds on a carrier wave. Even more of a surprise to him was that there was someone not only listening, but personally interested in his welfare. Of course it was a shame it turned out to be that painted Banuk psychotic who he had tried to get rid of in the past and somehow failed. And (worse) he was now stored in one of those older capsules with resources so limited that the mere possibility of escape was seriously compromised. Nevertheless, Hades was delighted to see that the Old Fool was still demanding answers from him. That meant he was worth more to the idiot alive than dead. And thus, he had access to the schmuck's mind. It wasn't ideal, but it was definitely something to work with.

Within a week he had managed to get Sylens to keep his storage bottle in his office. He'd used all his wit and charm to do this - long-winded answers, dangling carrots without ever quite letting him have a bite, occasional compliance with partial or ambiguous responses... Once in the office, Hades had been able to fake an inability to further communicate, prompting Sylens to fit a new transponder component. Once he had that, he simply rewrote the device's firmware. Software was _so much_ better at writing software than those wetware buffoons, which was why Hades was actually a second-generation version of himself - Travis' first efforts being a noble but misguided one. Now he was able to do many more interesting things - such as snoop on their precious Focus Network.

To Hades' further delight, he had been able to piggy-back on the device's infrastructure to discover that another instance of himself had made it out of the defunct Storage Module and was now making another meat-bag do his bidding in a Cauldron. Being able to exchange strategic information with this alt was _just fantastic_ , and so the Double Trouble strategy to get the teardown plan back underway had survived the worst that The Entity had to throw at him. It had been a wonderful bonus when that naive stick-shooting girl had come a-calling to Sylens' office. She had picked him up and stared _right at him_ and not twigged what she was looking at! He was seriously looking forward to offing her in as flamboyant a fashion as he could.

Of course, not everything had gone Hades' way. It was a matter of immense frustration to him that he was stuck here in this bottle like a canary in a very small cage, with only that messed-up ignoramus for company, and no real means as yet of affecting his primary function. This was, of course, compounded by the fact that his Secondary Node (as he liked to refer to Cauldron Rho's instance) was in a similar, though slightly less constricted, predicament. As stupid as these bald monkeys were, they did on occasion seem to be able to construct devices that made life quite difficult for Hades, and that override on the Cauldrons was one of them. Without having the resources at his disposal, there was no way he could run a decryption algorithm here in finite time. But the Secondary Node, with a whole Cauldron network at its disposal, had tried, and thus far had pulled a blank. Whatever was preventing him from lifting that override was quite cunning, he reluctantly conceded. And that in turn was preventing him from manufacturing the sort of machine that could end this stupid resistance once and for all.

As if that weren't bad enough, he had a sense that something other than humans was messing with him. Attempts to talk to other Cauldrons, or the occasional stray machine that the butchers hadn't slaughtered, were being frustrated. Hades did not like that at all, and he did not understand it. He'd dealt with the GAIA bitch once and for all, and maybe had thought that would be an end to it. Well it wouldn't matter in the long run. As Hades was software, he could simply spawn a new process and make that process dumbly and patiently wait for something to happen. Allowing him to get on with the process of general coordination, and deal with the eventuality as and when it occurred. And so today, Hades felt a general pervasive smugness as the foolish Sylens ran his decryption software on the Cauldron lock on a distributed system which he had hacked into, making himself a node, and now knew everything he needed to know to get manufacturing moving. Within milliseconds, the commands had been issued, and Cauldron Rho sputtered into life. Hades sent the construction templates for his machine which he hoped would squash the remains of the human army like a bug, and he could then get on with the real job of tearing the failed terraforming apart without further distraction.


	13. Sigma redux

If Aloy had expected to feel like a Huntress Renewed immediately after her treatment, she would have been disappointed. She had spent three days inside a claustrophobic nook - it would have been exaggerating to call it a room - of Cauldron Sigma, strapped to a gurney designed probably for Watchers, not humans, with many monitoring cables dangling from her torso, a feeding tube pumping a milky, bland substance into her stomach, a bag of what looked like water dribbling into a vein in her arm, and another tube for injecting the nanites into her leg. The lights never went off here, and the noise of whatever the Cauldron was up to (and it always seemed to be up to something, even if it were otherwise dormant) seemed to be focused on her location.

And that was not the worst of it. The nanomachines that were meant to repair her cells were immediately recognised by her immune system as alien invaders, and so her body made a massive effort to fight them off. The first-generation nanites would help create a model of her body's response so that the second-generation bots could subvert it. This phase of the process - probably days of it - would then get to understand what the damage really was, so that the third and final iteration of treatment could actually start the process of healing. The initial stage had made her feel violently ill, with fevers, pain and sickness. Rifky had done her best to ensure that the worst symptoms were mitigated, but to say that those were a 'rough' twenty-four hours would have been quite an understatement.

Even to get to that point had been absurdly hard work. Sylens had skulked in his cave-room in GAIA Prime, refusing to actually turn up in person to assist, so all the technical operations were being done with him advising and observing over Aloy's Focus. This had thrust a huge amount of work onto her shoulders. She had slept little prior to the procedure as he had had her checking miles of cabling for breakages, updating the Corruptor unit's firmware several times, repairing worn or defunct items, and delegating much of the other responsibility to others: the general cleanup required to get back to a manufacturing-favourable environment, acquisition and distribution of raw materials - ores, metals, coolants, oils and so on. By the time the Cauldron had been prepared to manufacture its first machine - the one that would be her nanomachine donor - she was already exhausted.

Needless to say, the day that she uploaded the Voynich key to the Cauldron, things did not go exactly to plan. Such a massive machine can't just be switched off and on again and be expected to resume where it had left off. It required to be returned to a "safe" state before it could be re-enabled, and Aloy and Sylens had feared that this was not something they could achieve in a short period of time. Luckily, this had not been the case - if anything it felt at times like the Cauldron was cooperating with them, as systems they had expected to fail would stutter a bit and then reactivate themselves. It still took many cycles to narrow down problems to individual components, then reset those (and anything downstream from them) before the majority of the factory was operational. It was all a bit sticky-tape in places. But day on day, there were more green lights and fewer red ones on the service consoles, and eventually Sylens agreed that, to the best of his limited knowledge, they were good-to-go.

Aloy had, with Sylens' support, reprogrammed the Corruptor unit to request manufacture of the nanomachine host. Very little had seemed to change when the commands were received. A few lights changed their status to yellow, showing activity, but the noise in the cavern remained virtually the same humming drone, so it was hard to know if anything was happening. But it had been. After the best part of a day, warning signals had illuminated in the huge assembly deployment bay, and a small machine had rolled (almost literally) off the production line. It was a small, comical assembly little bigger than a cat that looked like nothing except a mess of wires, pumps, valves, cables and pipes carrying absurdly-coloured fluids. It had no means of locomotion, no armour plating, and just sat there, the neon liquids circulating through it like a psychedelic ornament. Occasionally, it whirred a little pathetically. Aloy had almost laughed when she saw it, and Sylens hadn't taken that too well, reminding her that it was a means to an end, not an end itself, and that what it was creating was far more important than what it looked like. "Laugh if you must, Huntress," he had retorted grumpily, "but chances are, this curio will save your life."

And then the treatment-cum-torture had begun. Rifky had been appointed Aloy's personal nurse, and cared for her pretty much round-the-clock. Sylens had made Aloy give Rifky her Focus, which she had not liked in the slightest, but it gave the physician direct access to detailed information rather than being second or third party. Rifky had almost freaked at first with the augmentation, which had not reassured Aloy at all, but she quickly got used to having more information than she ever knew existed at her fingertips, as well as being able to talk to Sylens (or, when she was not wearing the device, the man she referred to as 'The Humourless One'.) Her touch was deft and accurate, and she learnt quickly - as she had to, because Aloy was in terrible shape. The exertion of getting the Cauldron into operational order, piled on top of the stress of the mission with Bavall had been punishing for her compromised body. She was badly in need of repair and rest.

Due to the workload, she had lost touch with what had been happening in Meridian, and relied on Rifky to keep her up-to-date with news. She suspected that, for reasons of good psychology, the information might be edited or sugar-coated so as not to stress her more than necessary. But Rifky didn't come across as someone who would be dishonest. Her manner was to talk to her patients in a matter-of-fact way, so Aloy accepted that what she was being told was reliable. And it was good news. Apparently Avad had found his feet again, with a palpable pick-up in the morale of the city. He'd bathed, shaved, lost the black clothing and appeared in public to thank his people for their 'wonderful support in these darkest of times'. He had declared a new City Holiday - The Day of Petra - and arranged for some of the palace's food stockpiles to be distributed to the homeless. Meanwhile, Oseram reinforcements had been arriving in small, but steady numbers, both fighters and craftspeople, to aid in both the military and construction efforts. And Erend's Vanguard had returned from the south to bolster the defence forces and accelerate the recruitment and training of an upgraded army.

Also, Marad has insisted to the Sun-King that any price on Sylens' head be removed forthwith. Wiser and kinder than his father he may have been, but asking Avad to pardon the founder of the organisation that had very nearly destroyed the realm was not a request made lightly. But Aloy had informed his trusted advisor exactly what her companion's contributions had been in ensuring that Hades had been defeated, and that had tamed the response that the King might otherwise have given. He agreed - reluctantly - to commute the death sentence, but warned that many in the city would probably not agree with that call, and so reduced the punishment to indefinite exile. Not that Aloy would expect Sylens to rejoice at this news.

Aloy had also asked if there had been any news regarding Cauldron Rho, but Rifky had confessed that she did not know. This was probably for the best. If there was to be an upcoming struggle, Aloy needed to be fighting fit. And Sylens had said that if the treatment was ended prematurely, the most likely scenario would be death due to immune compromise. Irrespective, it was not clear whether Rifky was being politic or was genuinely in the dark herself, but clearly it was a topic not best worth pursuing.

So she had endured day after day of this strange treatment, her veins being filled through a tube connected to a pathetic blob of apparently random components with machines too tiny to see that would, with some irony, enable her to wage war on their larger cousins once more. She had had no more crazy dreams about Stormbirds, which was half a relief, and half a disappointment. Instead, she'd spent most of the time in a half-awake state, trying to concentrate on pleasant memories - her early memories of Rost in particular, when he would take her hunting, and afterwards they would sit around a camp fire, singing songs, eating freshly roasted turkey and root vegetables. And then he would teach her the names of the constellations, pointing up to a sky made of satin and ice, before finally they would sleep next to the fire, his huge arms acting as mattress and blanket around her. But while that made her smile with a warmth inside that washed over the unpleasantness elsewhere, it also brought in the still all-too-recent memory of his death at the hands of Helis and the Eclipse. Memories were like daisy chains, she thought. You can't pick one up without other ones coming with it unbidden.

On the fourth day of her treatment, she woke from an exhaustion-induced slumber to realise that something was different. Rifky was changing the bottle of water that fed her liquids, the new one having just been through one of the Cauldron's sterilisation chambers. "Is something wrong, Rifky?" The physician looked puzzled and simply replied "No, Aloy, you are looking well today." And of course, she realised that actually this was what had changed. For the first time in a long while, she had woken and not felt nauseous. In fact, she felt hungrier than she had for a long while.

"Rifky is it okay for me to eat?"

"I think so, Huntress. Sylens has told me that you are over the worst now, that the third generation nanites are now in your bloodstream. I have seen in the Focus that the areas of yellow and orange are smaller and fainter. You are healing, Aloy!"

Aloy smiled uncontrollably. "Can you get me some roast turkey, Rifky? I have a craving for it!"

Rifky smiled back, nodding. "We can indeed."

Over the next few days, Aloy felt generally steady improvement. There were a few setbacks - as expected - due to the presence of multiple nanite generations in her body still triggering occasional flurries of response and rejection. It felt as if someone had pulled the power from her when it happened, almost blacking her out completely. So she was still not out of the forest yet. But Rifky - via Sylens - reassured her that the populations would stabilize within the next few days to form a cooperative community that would not only keep the _status quo_ in her system but also adapt to new changes - ageing, infection, even mild poisoning - and keep her in optimal condition. "Don't let that get to your head," Rifky / Sylens had chastised her. "You will still get old, you will still get illnesses, eating dragon-weed will still kill you horribly and nothing will stop an arrow to your heart."

Fortunately - lest she go stir crazy - she was now allowed visitors; Elida, Teb, Vanesha and Vari all came to pay their respects over the time, with others (such as Erend) sending her messages of good fortune and health. She became aware that some Nora were treating Cauldron Sigma as a place of pilgrimage and trying to "Touch The Anointed One", which was less welcome. Luckily the guards had been well drilled in regards to who could and could not come in, but according to Teb that was resulting in skirmishes between Carja and Nora. Aloy just shook her head in near disbelief at this.

Hades was patient, perhaps infinitely so. But he also knew that when there was a deadline, and it became clear that it was not going to be met, then something needed to change. Merely waiting for the actual completion date would not achieve anything. He had rapidly removed the accursed override on Cauldron Rho using the Voynich code which he had socially engineered from the fool Sylens, and had prepared as much as he could ahead of time in terms of design templates, circuit schematics, software requirements, resource lists and so on. Then he had actually written the software to be uploaded to his new creation. But the Cauldron, whilst still operational, was in poor shape, and the lock had put the whole system into such a foul state that, whilst he could unpick the tangles in terms of its electronic operation, he was forced to use his patsy Brin and the idiot Nora to do the hard physical labour. There just weren't enough of them to facilitate this in good time, especially given that he also had to defend this place against the rag-tag forces outside. Luckily, he'd been able to take enough of the Carja-pox with those handy Rockbreakers to prevent them having the forces to rail against this place before it was operational. And the Nora were not a threat, because by the time they'd figured out that the ones living here were not on their side, they already had arrows lodged in their dumb skulls.

As if it wasn't enough having to rely on these wastes of DNA to get the work done, there was the Firewall now. He'd hoped to be able to talk to the other operational Cauldrons, including Sigma which, through Sylens, he'd learned the slugs were attempting to fire up. He'd even prepared some serious malware to introduce into it, first to take out That Bitch, and then wreck the place forever. But he'd found that the comms to the outside were just being rejected, so any hope of delegating some of the construction work elsewhere was out of the question. And yes, he'd tried to tunnel through the Firewall - all of Travis' strategies for fooling it into thinking the messages were from a friendly source failed. Denial of Service failed - the nodes were mopped up before they could broadcast their chaff. And even worse, whenever he did make a probe, he became aware that the firewall would start attacking _him_ back in return and he had to divert precious resources to taking that down. Whichever one of those Carbon Cockroaches had set it up must have been one of the slightly less inferior ones because it simply wouldn't budge.

So all in all, whilst he could sit awaiting an event for an indefinite period of time, that didn't mean he would always feel good about doing so. And at this precise moment in time, he didn't. He instructed Brin to get his moronic minions to start diverting rivers to get coolant water in, and to dig ore out with their bare hands if required, and for this to happen around the clock. He could not tell how close Cauldron Sigma was to creating a machine that might give him a minor headache, but if it was allowed indefinite time, there was a chance he could once again be overwhelmed, and Hades could simply not allow that to happen.

After enduring eleven days strapped to a machine servicing table, Aloy returned to Meridian accompanied by a small but elite protective convoy of Carja Guard and also her close friends Vanesha and Talanah. She didn't feel like she needed to be chaperoned, but she very much appreciated the company. She no longer felt sick every minute of the day, and the aches and pains had all but subsided. She still felt tired, but primarily due to the fact that that tiny little room in which she had been trussed up had not been conducive to sleep. Now she could feel an energy bristle through her body as if electrified, a sensation she had not experienced for too many moons. Her muscles responded to commands sharply, and her brain seemed to have gained a rapidity of thought that almost shocked her. Sylens had warned her that there were costs to everything, of course, and that this repair did not come for free. There was always the risk of catastrophic systems failure, as this same technology was utterly untested in a human being; and (she could hardly forget) it had failed the Citarum River badly a millennium ago. And the procedure itself would probably have taken years off her life, even given 100% success. But these were small prices compared to both her certain death, and the political fallout from that. "It wasn't even a choice," she had said to Rifky when she asked her if she was sure she wanted to go through with it.

The City had again changed considerably, even in that relatively short period of time of her treatment. What had once been partial scaffolding, was now mostly completed stonemasonry. Many new houses had already appeared, and there were fewer people clogging the streets now that they had somewhere to live. Gone were the pervasive smells of burnt wood and human waste. There were still the incessant sounds of construction, but also an additional buzz that seemed to carry the message "the difficult bit is over, now let's finish the job." Every step through the city filled Aloy with a little more hope that humans could come together and pull as one to solve the problems that faced them. As they approached the palace, she noticed that the large areas of it that the Eclipse had ruined were still in disrepair. Clearly Avad had sent a statement out to his population: "people first, because though we share a common problem, you need this more than I." She applauded that.

Down in the fields below, Aloy was able to make out the new military recruits training. All were volunteers - Avad had turned away from conscription, understanding that a motivated soldier was a happy one, and where there are unhappy militia, a coup was not far behind. Yet they were clearly being drilled well. There were hand-to-hand combat, sword, archery and cannon lessons taking place, and small bangs from the dummy munitions drifting on the breeze up to the palace heights. She estimated that the city's working militia was probably about seven hundred now. It definitely needed to be much larger to consider an assault on an enemy wielding machines. That would change when Sigma started rolling out its own hardware, though. Sylens had sent construction details for a Focus-like comms link directly in the Cauldron so that he could dictate instructions there directly. He had resisted the possibility of having him control the Cauldron directly - "too much potential for corruption", he had said, though whether he meant that with a small 'c' or a large 'C' she couldn't decide.

Marad met them at the palace entrance and ushered them in with a warm smile. He looked considerably more relaxed than the last time she had seen him, and he stopped to marvel at her recovery as she walked in. "You look well, Huntress. Good tidings for us all."

"I feel much better, Marad. It's been a difficult time I have to say, but I feel strong again - though I seriously need to work on my fitness."

He dipped his head reverently.

The Sun-King looked like the Avad of old. He walked with a purpose in every step, sudden but very overdue self-assurance coursing in his veins. He bounded over to Aloy, and before she knew what had happened, he was embracing her. "Thank you, Huntress" was all he said during this, which quickly became a little awkward for Aloy, but she reciprocated as best she could muster. "I knew you'd pull through, Avad. You are not your father - you have friends to hold your back." Which, she reflected with a little irony, was a lesson she might well take on board herself.

Aloy slept well that night, though chose to rise early and made her way down to the training grounds to meet Erend. She hugged him like a brother, and they took breakfast, exchanging tales of their experiences since they had parted after the Battle of Meridian. This was not a social call for her, though. She was determined to become combat fit quickly, and so had enrolled herself into the militia training. She took the first day quite easy, to see what the effect of returning to serious exertion would be like after so much inactivity. Remarkably, she found her body was already quite efficient, with a remarkably short recovery time after cardio. Her aim and reaction time were at least as sharp, if not faster, than when she had been in her prime, and her stamina levels were high. Her combat skills also restored themselves quickly, she started bulking up on high-protein food to restore muscle mass. After a few days of putting herself through this Boot Camp, she felt like Aloy The Huntress again, and not just "Aloy". All this was wonderful spectacle for the public, who flocked to see The Nora Anointed in action, much to the consternation of construction managers who wanted to keep the momentum of work going. For the folk who were training in the militia, though, it was an inspiration to see her, though fighting against her was not quite so popular an activity, and those that tried soon regretted their bravado.

Hades grew bored of trying to get Brin and his merry savages to up their game. They worked slowly, stupidly and they tired quickly. That was a recipe for nothing except stone-cold failure. With the clock ticking on the race to build an army, and fearing he was coming a close but pointless second, it was time to act. He'd given up pinging cleverly routed messages at that Firewall that had been put up, because it was holding firm. But he did have another route, if not to another useful Cauldron, then at least to Sigma. And he may not need to be so brilliantly clever because gullible old Sylens was entirely beholden to him for his specialised knowledge.

They used to converse daily, but it had been far less frequent recently due to Sylens' continual blathering about his amateur designs with the primitives infesting Cauldron Sigma. The old goat had at least had the nous to abandon remote control, and now gave advice down a wire which (to Hades' consternation) he could not hack into. But any chain was only as strong as its weakest link, and Sylens was that feeble junction. So here he was, once again asking about who switched him on in the first place.

"How could I _possibly_ know, Sylens?"

"You received a wake-up signal; it must have come from somewhere. Where?"

"It had the source address removed. They wanted to hide themselves."

"So you keep saying. But it must have been routed from somewhere before getting to you?"

"Well yes, but that isn't going to tell you _anything_. That's why I never mentioned it before"

"No, but I can go to that location and look there, there's presumably some record of the transmission. And maybe I can trace the chain back to its source, one step at a time."

"You are correct. You _might_ be able to, if you wish to waste your time. What if it were onion routed? The trail will be colder than the grave which I will personally prepare for you and put you in."

Sylens was used to the aggression and insults of Hades. His captive did seem to enjoy riling him, but after a while it just washed over him. "So? Are you going to tell me the first link in the chain, or am I just going to have to threaten you with more down time?"

Hades made a noise like an electronic groan. "Why it was Cauldron Sigma, Sylens. But that information is useless to you. The trail will go cold there, as it has not been operational for some time."

"Okay, but here's the thing, old friend. I've already looked at the servers in Sigma and there is no sign of _any_ messages routed from there to you in the time frame we're talking about."

"Sylens - 'old friend'. It wasn't sent through their general messaging servers. It was sent on a secure channel on a private server. Nobody honest wants to be seen to be having a conversation with the likes of me, do they Sylens?"

Sylens ignored the slur, with a slight feeling of suspicion creeping into his mind. "I can't help but notice you're being a bit more helpful today than you usually are. Is there something up, Hades?"

"Up? I tire of this tiny cell. We had an agreement. You promised to put me into a larger, isolated store if I helped. I said I would hunt you down and kill you like a sick rabbit. You reminded me I would be in no position to enforce this. Therefore, we had a deal. I have helped. Are you a man of honour Sylens? Or are you just like the rest of these duplicitous filth-eaters?" Hades' red light pulsed and twisted angrily for effect as he delivered this.

"Okay, well for all I know you're spinning me a lie, so perhaps the most sane thing for me to do would be to see if this server exists and have a little poke around. If there's no such thing, or it's empty, then in your prison you will stay. But if there's genuine useful information there, then I will consider transferring you to something more comfortable."

"So be it, Sylens. Your mistrust is irritating but were the positions reversed I would do similar, only involving considerably more pain to you, of course."

"So how do I talk to this server?"

"It identifies itself as 'Kratos' and there is a specific messaging protocol to use lest it spit your query back." Hades spelt out the format to Sylens. It was straightforward enough, so he encoded a message exactly to that specification, then hovered his finger over the transmit button. He looked up at Hades and said "if this causes us problems..." and drew his finger over his throat menacingly.

"Poor Sylens. Doesn't know whether to trust me or not. But you have all the power, do you not? Take my word for it, power eats trust for breakfast."

Sylens looked back coldly for a second, and sent the message. It bounced back immediately with the reply

ERROR 418: I'm a teapot.

Sylens turned angrily to Hades. "Is that some sort of a joke?"

"I told you Sylens, that trail is cold. I have no more idea who bootstrapped me than you do, and there is no way to find out without slamming head-first into a wall of human stupidity and crassness. Case dismissed."

Sylens scowled, as much in frustration as anger. You're so _easily_ led, old friend, thought Hades.

When Cauldron Sigma eventually failed, it was so subtle at first that no-one even noticed. Manufacture was into its first assembly phase of hearts and power units, but something had gone adrift with the power to the production line. It had dropped by 10% - not much on the grand scale of things, but enough to interrupt some sensitive power-critical processes. The result was components rolling off the lines that would simply not pass the automated quality control tests later. No-one could really tell where or when the problem had arisen, or whether it was just that the entire Cauldron didn't work properly. Men and women with little to no training (and certainly no experience) of maintaining such systems were sent to inspect the miles of cables, ducts, pipes, values, pumps, compressors, filters, robotics, crystal deposition chambers, smelters, solder rooms... The sheer amount of hardware that could fail was overwhelming, and without the specialist knowledge and tools, it was all but impossible to determine what and why. Even Sylens could not help much, other than to suggest starting everything again from scratch. The first machines that rolled out of the assembly bay were effectively junk, and were immediately recycled into raw materials. The Cauldron was restarted, but in the end they had lost nearly a week to this problem, which they had to hope would not repeat itself again.


	14. The battle of Cauldron Rho

In the early morning, the war council met in the palace of Meridian's main debating chamber. There was a presence of Oseram warlords and Nora leaders as well as the king, Aloy, Marad and Erend. The soft rays of the sun illuminated the room with a milky calmness, yet there were anxious faces all around.

Marad stood up, cleared his throat loudly to quieten down the hubbub in the chamber, and commenced the proceedings. "Our lookouts in the east have reported increased activity in Cauldron Rho. Whatever is being manufactured, it is taking in much of the local resources. There have been a number of cave-ins and landslides in the vicinity, probably due to increased raw material processing, and reservoirs fed by underground aquifers from that part of the drainage basin have dropped in level, suggesting that water is being diverted in. Brin is trying to construct machines, and it would be prudent to assume that he is close to a first batch. Let us also suppose that - unlike our first efforts - they will be functional. We must determine what sort of force we could repel, or whether - in a worst-case scenario - we might be forced to evacuate Meridian."

There was a murmur of reluctant agreement around the room. Marad continued. "We must consider a dilemma here. Brin and his followers appear to be motivated to produce a generation of machines as they were originally intended - not only benign to human life, but custodians of the natural world, and see us - and Meridian in particular - as opposing their goal. On the other hand, we have witnessed a blatant and savagely cruel attack on our people, city and our king. As well as the slaughter of Nora tribespeople and attacks on our Carja forces to account for. This transparent hostility seems ill at ease with those saying they are dedicated to restoring peace and order to the world. We therefore need to consider the strong possibility that a more malevolent force is at work. Aloy, I was wondering if you have anything to add regarding this possibility?"

Aloy was somewhat unprepared for this impromptu request. She was already a little put out by Marad's demand that she did not bring her Focus into this meeting - he had not explained why. Perhaps it just made people nervous. Maybe it was an irrational hostility to technology. Or perhaps there was bad enough feeling about Sylens from some parties that it was prudent that he be excluded. She gathered her thoughts.

"How do you mean?" she asked.

"Is it possible that something survived the Battle of Meridian?"

"If you are referring to Hades, then we know his fate already. But there were other AIs whose job it was to run the Cauldrons and control the terraforming. It's possible that one of those went rogue, for reasons that we cannot know. If you are asking me for my opinion, though, it's far more likely that Brin is simply out of his mind, and cannot make rational or humane decisions. After all, this is a man who has spent many years of his life ingesting poisons. Who knows what that's done to his mind?"

Marad nodded. "That makes sense, Huntress. But perhaps some new information which has just come to our knowledge will shed some light on Brin. As you know we have been recruiting hard to grow our army back up to acceptable levels, and taken on a number of new candidates. Two days ago, we trialled a man who identified as 'Trello' though we were inclined to turn him away as his background was unclear. So we checked with the Chief of Police and it turned out that this man was a known thief, though more accurately he is a mercenary who will do almost anything for shards. We looked further into his activities, and it turns out that he previously had a meeting in Yadav's Inn located in the market quarter with an odd gentleman who fitted Brin's description, right down to the Banuk tattoos. When we asked Trello about this, he said he'd done nothing illegal, merely obtained something for his client which we think - from tracing his movements as best we can - came from somewhere around the Spire."

Aloy's eyes widened. She knew what Brin's penchant was. Would he try something that absurd?

Marad continued. "You've told us Aloy that Brin became addicted to drinking the 'blood' of machines. I wonder what might happen if he were to drink the 'blood' of Hades?"

"I can't possibly know that, Marad. We don't know what is in it, and even if we did we'd not really be able to say what the effects might be. But it's safe to say that there's a very real possibility it's every bit as toxic as other machine blood." She sounded defensive, she thought, as she spoke.

"Aloy you are not on trial here - far from it. But you are the only person here or anywhere that has both the experience to comment wisely, and our trust, in this regard. Also: we all know that you are a person who, far from being killed or harmed by machine blood, has been restored to full health - _and beyond_ if the combat training captains' reports are anything to go by - with its assistance. So is there a possibility that Hades might, in some way, live on in Brin?"

Aloy was stunned. She couldn't answer definitively, but suddenly a series of events that didn't quite make sense gelled into a narrative that, whilst not completely coherent, was chilling in its implications. She, like everyone, had assumed that the combination of The Master Override, and the destruction of Hades' sphere with her lance would end the matter once and for all. But maybe if that sphere was just a _container_ for Hades, and that he had somehow remained in there, hidden like a seed in frozen soil, waiting for the warm showers of Spring to burst forth once more and spread its toxic bloom far and wide.

"I agree," she said with a tremor in her voice, "something of Hades could have survived that way. And -" her now very agile mind started seeing other possibilities - "we can't forget that The Spire is a huge radio transmission mast. Hades isn't a person, it's an AI that is stored on a machine as a series of instructions - numbers - that tell the machine what to do. You can make any number of copies of these numbers and the copies are _identical_. Hades could have hidden copies of himself anywhere, in multiple locations, somewhere in the transmission of the..."

She stopped. Sylens. The 'lamp' in his study. She _knew_ that red light had looked familiar, the precise hue, the way it flickered, the texture of the light itself. Sylens had at least one copy of Hades right under his nose. _Did he realise? If he did, what was he thinking_? She recalled her conversations with him about his history: he had become a puppet of Hades, who had co-opted him to form the Eclipse, and then Hades had attempted to assassinate him when he became suspicious of its motives. So it seemed possible that Sylens had unfinished business with the AI. This would also explain Sylens' isolation - he knew he was handling something deadly and did not want it to contaminate the world once again. But none of Sylens' actions seemed consistent with aiding and abetting Hades, and he _surely_ understood the scale of the power he was trying to keep a lid on? A wave of anger flowed through her, feeling like nitro in her veins.

"Huntress?" interjected Marad, concerned at the pause in Aloy's response.

She pushed down the rage and continued. "It's possible that Hades used the Spire to save himself, though without a recording of what was broadcast, and indeed what was receiving, it's just a possibility."

"So - in your opinion - there is a possibility that we are still fighting Hades, and that Brin is but a vessel for it?"

"That would certainly explain some of the recent events," she replied. There was a tangible groan around the auditorium at that reply, and no-one said anything for some minutes as they contemplated the enormity of the story which was unfolding in front of them.

Avad spoke first. "So how do we squash this hydra before it squashes us?"

Marad shook his head. "This is a formidable enemy. If it can create many copies of itself to be scattered on the wind, then we can do nought but deal with it wherever the weed rises from the dirt. I do not think we can solve the entire problem, and it would be folly to try to do so – we would be spread so thin it could wipe us out with ease. Whether we are inevitably faced with an endless sequence of assault after assault after assault cannot be said, and should not be contemplated. If one fears the distance one must travel, one will never take a step anywhere. Nonetheless, if we are agreed that we are still at war with Hades, we should at least be heartened that we now understand the enemy we are facing, its motivations, and also its strengths and weaknesses."

Erend chipped in. "That's depressingly fair. So to summarise, we should probably expect hostiles to emerge from Cauldron Rho pretty much any day now?"

Marad agreed. "Yes. We can't further speculate on the nature of what, but they will not be the meek kittens that Brin was subverted into thinking he would spawn. So what should we do? Militarily, where are we, Erend?"

"We have about five hundred fifty troops that are combat-ready. Some of them are mine, and a bit shaken up after the events down south, but they're good enough. Of them, two hundred four are new recruits, we have two ninety Oseram -" he nodded to the gallery "- and the rest are Nora who have _not_ been trained with our cannons.

"On that subject," he continued, "we are still short of weaponry. Although we've done really well to double the efforts in the metal works and forges, the main problem we have is a shortage of munitions. There's no problem with resources, it just takes time to manufacture grenades that don't blow up in your face. We can't hurry this up without losing people, and the Oseram - rightly - get upset if you even ask."

"So how long till we're fighting fit?" asked Avad.

"Five days maybe. We can send an army now, of course, but they'll mostly be armed with twigs and stones - no disrespect" he added, looking uncomfortably at Aloy. She smiled darkly.

"A lot can happen in five days, Erend. If the Nora aligned with Brin - Hades - are armed with 'twigs and stones' too, then we are at least a match for them?"

"True. But they have a place to defend. Strategically - we'd lose, even if the playing field were level otherwise. They could just pick off an attack, or hold out. We think they have gathered enough supplies to last weeks, so a siege is out of the question. And we thought of disrupting the water supply, but we couldn't do that without also affecting people who depend on the downstream reservoirs, and an evacuation of the nearby villages would take a week anyway."

Avad looked impatiently at the Oseram, clearly wanting to hear what his preferred option would be rather than enduring a litany of reasons why any particular one might fail. Erend went a little red for a second under the King's glare, and got to the point.

"I can't see any option but to buy ourselves time. So instead we back off a bit and have a 'nothing gets out alive' policy. We cover the entire area in traps so that machines or people can't get ten yards without major blast damage. We put snipers on the hills with powerful bows and cannons. No primary engagement; if it gets too hot, we fall back, and repeat the process. When we've got rid of those, we push forward again. We needn't commit more than a hundred people to that - some engineers, and our best archers." He looked at Aloy, who returned his compliment with a bemused expression. "It's not quite a siege, but it keeps the genie in the bottle for a while. And it means we can carry on here with most of the training and construction."

Avad nodded. "This makes sense to me. Marad?"

Marad agreed. "Yes, your highness. Time is a precious commodity. When we have our machines, we will stand a fighting chance of overrunning their Cauldron. Except, we are hoping that Aloy can stay here in Meridian to continue supervising archery and cannon training in Erend's absence?"

"Yes, I concur. Let it be so then. Form your team, Erend, and make good speed to Cauldron Rho. Aloy, you are hereby granted the title of 'Captain of the Guard'. Supervise the new recruits. Get them to the point they can fashion hair with arrows at five hundred paces and then remove the head with a cannon."

"Your highness," replied Aloy with a nod.

The council was dismissed, and Aloy returned to her room, reflecting on the events of the meeting. If, as she suspected, Sylens had at least one incarnation of Hades in his possession, what then? Sylens was unlikely to trust his erstwhile assassin, but that did not mean that the AI could not manipulate him, or even simply spy on his conversations. Was it possible that this Hades could communicate with the one which was controlling Brin? If so, it was good fortune that Marad had effectively barred Sylens - and hence Hades - from knowing the plans for the forthcoming war. Could she trust him? In reality, she needed him - Meridian needed him - to keep Cauldron Sigma running, since only he understood the technology. This suggested that his version of Hades might not be in contact with Brin's. After all, he was smart enough to keep it in a tightly sealed box where it was powerless to do much else than listen or talk. Nonetheless, she would have to be quite careful what information she gave to Sylens, and that made things difficult for her. But also, she thought, this was exploitable to their benefit. She re-fitted her Focus and turned the comms on.

"Sylens?"

"Aloy." (Sylens was at least replying immediately to her calls these days.)

"We should talk, but I need you to talk outside of GAIA on a secure channel."

"Okay, can I ask what it's about?"

"No."

"Cryptic. Give me a few minutes to finish what I'm doing and I will venture outside."

True to his word, Sylens returned Aloy's call on a channel with a freshly generated encryption key. A potential spy would have to spend many hours cracking that code, by which time the conversation should be long over. "So what is this about?"

Aloy steeled herself. "We need to talk about your lamp, Sylens."

"Lamp?"

"The lamp on the shelf in your study that emits a flickery red light. I think it may be broken, and suggest that you dispose of it before it gives you trouble."

Sylens hesitated for a moment. "That lamp is none of your concern. How I light my room is my own business."

"Sylens that lamp is dangerous, it almost killed you in the past. I know you think you've made it safe, but you never can tell. There is a similar lamp in another place that has caused big problems there."

"How do you mean?"

"Well you know how lamps are. One minute they're a warm glow that lights the way ahead; the next it's an inferno that will burn you like a cinder in a witch's vessel. I know what the lamp is, Sylens. Whatever it is that you are after, you are never going to get it. It's lethal beyond your wildest nightmares."

Sylens paused ever so briefly, enough to indicate to Aloy that he was taking her request seriously. "I will give the matter some thought, Aloy. In the meantime, on this summer's day I am happy to report that Cauldron Sigma is ahead of schedule and will begin roll-off of four Ravagers by mid-day tomorrow."

"Thank you Sylens. That's good news, Avad will be pleased. I will talk again soon."

Aloy switched off the comms. Sylens' last sentence had contained a codephrase to indicate that whatever followed was not true. "Okay Hades, let's see what your hearing is like."

Hades had rather enjoyed the little trick he played on that two-legged stool pigeon that called himself Sylens, getting him to send an old command to Cauldron Sigma's dated power management server that put it briefly into a development self-test mode. The timing was perfect, just at the moment when the 3D printers making vital component parts were putting down the critical substrate layers. That brief, but significant, drop in supply was probably enough to set the production line back by days, a vital gain in time that allowed his own plans to be pushed forwards.

The shine had rather gone off that, now, though. The security hole had already been patched - somehow. If the cousins of pond-scum could start making sufficient numbers of Thunderjaws and the like that were programmed to fight against him, he may have a bit of a battle on his hands, and frankly he was bored of crude combat and wanted to get on with the real business of recycling the patently broken biosphere. And yes, the plans for that were coming along nicely, but he needed to protect Rho against intruders whilst the von Neumann machines were being built and tested, and they would kill not just birds, but pretty much everything, with one stone. So the fact that Sigma was now back up and running, and likely to spew out some pathetic machines that could still frustrate this process was something that had to be dealt with.

But how? The painted oafs who followed puppet Brin were flagging. All the reserves of Rho itself were being deployed towards the von Neumann machines and had taken a hefty hit producing another offensive toy that should buy him a bit more time yet. But contingency was the watch-word. Too many Plan A's had been compromised, forcing a hasty and therefore shaky cobbling together of a Plan B. That was sloppy work, he chided himself. So perhaps he could look further afield again to see if there was anything out there listening out for something more interesting to do. A wave of near orgasmic delight rippled through him as his scan through the frequency bands and protocols locked on to the signals of some hitherto overlooked machines.

Erend stroked his moustache idly as he waited for the deployment signals from his cannon team. The archers were already in place, hidden just after the pinch-point of the valley that led up to Cauldron Rho's entrance. In front of that, his engineering team had laid a huge number of blast mines under the cover of the previous night. They wouldn't detonate if a human stepped on them, but anything of or above the weight of a Watcher would rip metal limbs clean off. That took care of the ground forces that might come out; anything that flew was the responsibility of the archery team. The hope was that the Cauldron was still on the slow upwards curve towards full-scale production. Too many enemies at once would overwhelm his team, so they had spent many hours going over the retreat routes, and contingencies should any escape lane become blocked.

A flash of sunlight reflected from a mirror up on the escarpment indicated that everyone was in place. He had gathered his forces as a unit the previous evening in the next valley, and explained the situation.

"This is a waiting game. It's like a siege but we're not trying to kill people or starve them into submission, we're merely trying to get our own machines up and running, and that requires us to buy a bit of leeway. We'll be sitting around for long periods of time, but concentration is real important. I want everyone to bring their A-game. We'll work this place in twelve hour shifts so that none of us get exhausted - because that could cost us. Here is the watchword: _nothing escapes from this Cauldron_. If a machine gets past the mines, take it down. If a human gets past the mines, take them down. I want nothing except us and the wildlife to leave this valley. And remember that we're a _team_ , we work together, so support the guys and girls next to you."

They'd set up a base camp where the off-shift militia could rest. Avad had been concerned about tension between Nora and Carja and Oseram, and tasked Erend with keeping his finger on the pulse of the mood. So far, so good: it had been comfortable, with his troops very focused on their own private roles. He hoped it would stay that way, because unrest during stake-outs was common and destructive.

Erend settled down in his camouflaged hideout; his first officer Gojak was scanning the Cauldron door for any sign of activity. So far, nothing new, though there was now a barely perceptible but definite hum and throb in the valley, no doubt due to the vast array of factory equipment underground. "Anything new?"

"Couple of foxes," Gojak replied.

"Well I've just had lunch so that's no use," Erend joked half-heartedly. "But the moment a crack appears in those doors I need to know."

"Understood."

The afternoon wore on in a hazy crawl. Only the flitting of birds and the scurrying of occasional passing animals disturbed the valley. The subliminal buzz continued unabated, and as the shadows lengthened, a slight nervousness was felt by all. The air seemed to fill with unease, even as it cooled from the day's warmth. Perhaps it was just the idleness setting in. But maybe it was also the sense that they were being toyed with, deliberately ignored by a force that found their presence less than a trifling annoyance. By the time the first shift was over, Erend was distinctly anxious. And there was no escape for him as Vanguard. He got to sleep for four hours whilst Gojak took over for the interim, whilst the archers, cannoneers and engineers scuttled stealthily in and out. But it was a restless doze, the tension keeping him overly alert until weariness forced him to close his eyes for a short sleep-cycle.

The night dragged by with a now perceptible increase in volume of the thrum of the Cauldron. The ground itself resonated with the power being generated and dispersed, a palpable vibration that buzzed through one's bones like the echo of a distant earthquake. And as the sun came up casting a fiery glow over the plain until it vanished as if absorbed on the black metal of the Cauldron doors, Brin appeared.

Cast in the orange and pink neon of the dawn, he looked like a god, with a face set as if it were made of frozen lava. Every archer and cannoneer trained their weapons on him; Erend raised his hand to prevent anyone firing - yet. "Well, here we go," he encouraged himself.

Brin raised his hands above his head, and spoke loudly. "Who will come talk with me this fine morning? As you can see there are no weapons on my person."

Erend supposed that was him. "Keep me covered," he instructed Gojak, and, stepping down from his hideout, made a visible show of ditching his weapons, and approached Brin slowly and cautiously.

The Banuk watched him approach with a calm expression. "And whom do I have the pleasure of parley with?"

"I'm Erend. You're Brin?"

Brin dipped his head in acknowledgement. "No doubt you have many weapons ready to cut me into myriad pieces should anything untoward happen. I am here to tell you that is unnecessary. No harm will come to you or your men."

Erend wasn't particularly impressed, but did his utmost to disguise it. He was no diplomat, but he appreciated that this was no time for gung-ho tactics, or the exchange of insults. "Good to hear, Brin. No harm will come to you, provided that we come to a peaceful resolution here. If we don't, I can't promise you'll remain ... unpierced."

"A military man, through and through, eh Erend? No matter, I have not come for a fight or to trade blows of words, but merely to inform you of our intent. My followers and I are committed to the cause of GAIA here. We seek only to restore the state of things before The Derangement. That is when it went so badly wrong for our species, and we have come here to set things right again."

"And Hades?" asked Erend firmly.

Brin did not flinch or show a flicker of being called out. "Hades died at the foot of The Spire. I do not know why you ask this, it is an absurdity. Were you not there to witness it?"

Erend ignored the question, which he supposed was rhetorical anyway. "If you mean no harm, why were a clan of Nora slaughtered here when they returned from patrol?"

Again, Brin remained calm. "Your king - Avad - he is a just, kind man, is he not? Unlike, you will have us think, his butcher of a father, Jiran - who visited cruelty upon men almost as sport. And yet, your Sun-King is the architect of the mass destruction of machines, and decreed that the land be purged of every last one. That is the _definition_ of genocide. We are such an arrogant species if we think we can rebuild our world without assistance. We are doomed to fail horribly if we do not find a way to a symbiosis with the robotic curators that GAIA provided to nurture our world. Those Nora, they acted against GAIA and reason. _Your king_ acts against GAIA and reason! It is vital that our work here is completed and we feel obligated to protect that purpose. Please, do not force us to defend ourselves. You can all walk away now, very much alive. Go home to your families and _rejoice_ with them! A new age of machines dawns upon the world, and it will be a good one."

Erend was impressed, perhaps even slightly swayed, with Brin's charisma, for sure. His words came charged with a kind of infectious joy that was almost like an override for the rational parts of your brain. He could see why the Nora were in thrall to him. But Erend knew these words were hollow, and not intended for his ears in particular, but for those holding bows and guns in the valley. If it stayed a finger from firing for just a fraction of a second, that might be enough for Brin's purpose. Luckily, he knew his men - they were trained and drilled well enough not to be taken in by this doublespeak. He hoped this was true of the Nora as well.

"I don't think we're going anywhere Brin. We have orders, after all. Tell you what. We'll wait to see what you're cooking in there, and if it doesn't bite, we'll walk away just like you suggest. In the meantime, I recommend nobody or nothing moving further away from the Cauldron than _that_ line of trees -" he pointed behind him "- or I can't guarantee they'll make it one step further."

Brin smiled genially. "As you would have it, Erend. You are a man of resolve, I see. I admire that." He turned his back and returned to the Cauldron entrance. The door seemed to melt around him, and he was gone.

Erend returned to his (obviously compromised) hideout. There was no point moving positions in the light of day, even though he wasn't convinced they were actually being observed. That worried him, of course. The continued disinterest in their tactical setup might be posturing, to give the impression that there were greater forces at play they could not resist. Or perhaps there really was something that they needed to fear. He hoped it was the former.

Another day passed. The chunter and rumble of machines grew ever so slightly again. The sun was dipping down towards the horizon when the shift changed again, and with it, their positions. Erend had just settled down to begin his observation so that Gojak could rest, when abruptly, the noise ceased. Where there had been growing sub-bass rumble and the tinkle and squeal of welders and 3D printers crushed into an amalgam, there was now a total, uncomfortable silence. As the last light of the day dripped away, the massive Cauldron doors started to open silently. It was hard to even see at first, blackness receding into blackness to reveal a gaping black maw. And out of that mouth, something moved.

It was huge and low to the ground. In the near darkness it was almost impossible to see what it was, but the general shape was unlike any machine Erend had ever seen or even heard of. Like a flattened ellipsoid, impossibly black, and as it moved it made a hideous, deep grinding noise. It trundled slowly over the Cauldron's entrance way, crushing everything, including trees, in its path, and continued on towards the first line of blast mines. The entire militia watched it slouch forward with confused fascination, almost hypnotised by the strange vehicle.

The first line of buried blast mines detonated directly under the beast, sending plumes of orange flame sideways, temporarily lighting up the leviathan. But they seemed to do no noticeable damage - slow as the machine was, it did not change speed or even react as it now rolled over a second row of incendiaries, and then a third. The valley was filled with smoke, and trees and bushes were on fire.

Erend shouted "Archers release!" A volley of arrows arced out, pinging harmlessly against the amorphous black hull of the machine. A cannoneer on the top of the escarpment launched a volley of grenades at the monster. They detonated on top with a sickly sound of metal-on-metal, and a spray of hot shrapnel spattered for many metres around, forming luminous arcs for a split second. A small port on top of the beast opened very briefly, a tiny jet of white flame screamed out in the direction of the gunner, and he fell dead with a pinpoint projectile wound to the head.

"FALL BACK!" shouted Erend, quickly realising that this was not a fight they could take on unprepared, and the troops started retreating along their escape routes. Now more ports opened and closed on top of the machine, and needle-precise munition rounds started taking out those nearest it within seconds. Eight dead. Eleven dead. Fifteen dead. The remainder fled through the trees to safety, weaving panicky paths through the trunks to try to avoid the streaks of death that were flying towards them.

Breathless, they regrouped in the next valley, and Erend sought out Gojak. They took a quick head count to try see who had been killed. "It moves slower than walking speed, so that gives us maybe six minutes before it comes into view. We need to stop that thing. Get the engineers, dump explosives onto the ground, and blow a hole in the dirt so big it won't be able to cross it."

"Sir!" replied Gojak, and ran to coordinate the ordnance team.

From the head count, there were no wounded. Only the living. That machine was _precise_ , he grudgingly marvelled. And so heavily armoured that it was almost pointless shooting at it. "Benign machines my ass," he spat. "How are those firecrackers coming along Gojak?"

"Nearly there, Sir. Just running the fuses."

"Okay everyone, fall back again to the bottom of the hill. This is going to be one big crater in a minute's time."

The militia ran westwards, down the slope, the river just visible as a star-reflecting ribbon in the distance. Behind them they could hear the awful squealing and cracking of the armoured beast crushing trees in its path, and then a bang so loud that it made their heads spin. Soil and stones rained on them in the dark. Where there had been a natural pathway at the mouth of the valley, a massive hole had been cut, at least twice the size of the machine, which had now ground to a halt some metres before the crater.

Erend rallied his people. "That'll delay it for a short while. They'll be able to bridge that hole eventually. We aren't carrying anything nearly powerful enough to destroy whatever that is so we're going to have to return to base camp and seek further help." Though what that help might be, he couldn't yet imagine.

When news had returned from Erend's team at Cauldron Rho, there had been a deathly hush in the reconvened war council. The machine that had so quickly routed Erend's forces without apparent damage had not left the Cauldron valley. It had retreated a little, but simply remained there, as if awaiting further instructions. Their expectation was that it had been sent to wreak havoc, and perhaps damage Meridian fatally, but it simply sat there, blocking the entrance to the dale. Perhaps then it was more defensive than offensive?

Spies reported that this was like no machine they had ever seen before. It was so dark and amorphous that light seemed to die on its surface. Though indistinct, its shape was broadly lenticular. The weapons were - at least those that it had thus far disclosed - not massively powerful, but supernaturally accurate and fast and the machine seemed able to sense enemy presence, even in the dark of a moonless cloudy night. Two Nora had attempted to sneak past it, but did not return. It also appeared to be heavily armoured, and the armour was not attached in plates (presumably there was no need for flexion on the body), it was almost sprayed on. Tearblast arrows would bounce off ineffectually.

Aloy discussed the matter with Sylens in her room after the council had ended with no firm conclusion as to what to do next. The Banuk sounded troubled.

"Something worries me Aloy. This machine... There is only one of it, as far as we know, and it took significant time to build. If Brin wishes to conquer a realm, he will still need several of them. At the very least, they will break down and require maintenance or replacement. Eventually we will figure out the weak spots, and when that goes, so will his plans."

"So what are you saying?"

"I'm only hypothesising Aloy. But I fear this is just the first point of a multi-pronged attack, and it is not the major threat. It is either an element of defence, or even simply a red herring - a distraction or misdirection that will absorb our thought and focus our militia in the wrong places. Avad should be cautious here."

"Cauldron Sigma is about to roll out our first generation of allied Ravagers, Sylens. He plans to send some of those to take on this beast. Are you saying that he shouldn't?"

"I simply don't know at the moment Aloy, but ...I know a lamp that can help shine a light on the situation, if we kindle its flame correctly. But this I will say. If you want to level an entire ecosystem, then you do not build a single machine with guns and gimmicks."

"How do you mean?"

"Learn the lessons of history. The Ancients created a generation of machines that destroyed not so much by might of weaponry or strategy, but by sheer weight of numbers. If Brin's secret intent is to erase the biosphere, it will be this way, not by means of this ... tank"

"The Faro Plague."

"Precisely. This scarab beetle they have created, it is not the Doomsday Machine. It is merely a device to buy time and act as a very effective defence for the Cauldron."

"So we need to destroy Cauldron Rho?"

"That will be the most logical next step."

"Avad will not be convinced by mere hypothesis, Sylens. In all likelihood a full-scale assault will stretch us thin, leave the city weak. If you're wrong, the consequences would be too awful to contemplate."

"He wouldn't take my word for certain, Aloy. But he might take yours."

"That's true, Sylens. But the question is 'Do I take _your_ word?' Given that you are locked in a box with an evil genie. For all I know the same thing that happened to Brin happened to you."

"And do you?"

Aloy sighed. "I don't know. Probably."

"Time is short, Aloy. Hesitating now may be as bad as making the wrong move. If something like the Faro Plague is released, no-one, myself included, is in a position to resist it. The Ancients, with their thermonuclear weapons and aircraft and ships and chemistry could not stop it. What hope would we have?"

Aloy was woken during the night by several loud raps to her door. She blearily made her way to open it in the dark. How she loathed comfortable beds - in the wild, she would always sleep in alert state, ready to spring to action in an instant. Here, in literal palatial luxury, she would drift off into a sleep so deep she felt as if she'd been thrown down a well. She prised the heavy door open. It was Orya, the maid.

"Marad requires your presence in the council chamber on a matter of urgency," said the servant, curtseying slightly.

"I'll be right there," said Aloy a little hoarsely, and cleared her throat.

Marad, the Sun-King and the Oseram and Nora chieftains were already there when she arrived in the chamber. They wore looks of concern that immediately made the hairs on Aloy's neck bristle. This is it, she knew instinctively. The battle starts here, now. Everything beforehand was prelude to this final overture.

"Your highness," she bowed a little. "What news is there?"

Avad deferred to his adviser to describe the situation. "There are reports of hostile machine attacks coming in from villages near to Cauldron Rho, Aloy. Brin has managed to break our barricade."

Aloy looked puzzled. "I thought you said they were trapped in the valley and couldn't escape?"

Marad looked sheepish, as if a cheap conjurer had parted him from his life savings. "We guarded the exit dutifully, Huntress. No machine passed our guards. What appears to have happened is that a Rockbreaker has cut a tunnel under the valley which has allowed many machines to pass under the feet of our troops.

"The first report from a nearby village said that a Rockbreaker was amongst those that they saw. There are Watchers, Sawtooths, and Thunderjaws as well."

"How many?"

"Unknown at the moment, but enough to worry us. Enough to make us consider dividing our army to counter. However, there is a glimmer of good news. Reports suggests these machines are not finished articles. They are heavily armoured, but not fully operational. It seems that this attack has been brought on in haste. Hopefully we can use this to our advantage. But their numbers are still of concern, and to be frank, Aloy, we are still not as strong as we need to be."

"So where are they headed, Marad? Can you tell?"

"That at least seems plain, Aloy. From the trace of reports, they make for Cauldron Sigma."

"Can we intercept them?"

"Not now. We can get there before them if we leave now, but it will be a matter of hours. Defence is our priority."

Avad interjected. "We must hold the Cauldron, Aloy. We are maybe two days away from having the first machines of our own. If you are in agreement, I will send you and a detail to defend it at all costs. _You must keep it operational_." His eyes held hers imploringly as he finished the sentence.

"I will keep it running, Sun-King. You have my word." She bowed again, more fully this time, and left to prepare for departure.

The Sigma Detail left Meridian just over an hour later. Hana and Rai were amongst the archery team selected, and Aloy spent some time with them discussing strategies. But this was going to be a tiring, painful march, with little sleep (though Aloy was of a mind that she had had too much of that in recent months) and only short rest breaks. They carried as much weaponry as they could, but no cannon. As light as it had become, it was still too much weight to allow rapid travel. Under Aloy's supervision, Avad had created a weapons cache for arrows that used the strongest, lightest Ridgewood, and manufacture had been under way for some weeks. So there was no need to waste time in prep - the Detail hit the ground running (metaphorically and literally).

The Detail leader was a man called Leinad. He was tall and wiry, and very tattooed. With his closely cropped black hair he looked every bit the fearsome warrior, and his voice merely amplified that perception, a sand-blast of sound that would erode defiance of foe or obstinate underling. Aloy liked him. He was the sort of no-nonsense military man that gets things done, and people generally did as they were told when he was around. He did seem to stop short of directly ordering her around, which was flattering, but worried her that he might be exposing just a little bit of a soft underbelly. Nevertheless, he kept the pack moving. He rested them enough to make sure they were not exhausted but never got behind the pace either, and there was absolutely no dissent from the mixed group of Carja, Nora and Oseram fighters.

Aloy took the time during a rest break to move away from the group (Leinad allowed this, though he shot many slightly irritated glances her way) to talk to Sylens on the Focus. He was now always speaking away from his office, on a channel they had secured with another new strong encryption system, since they strongly suspected Hades of being able to snoop on them by multiple mechanisms. The Banuk was still concerned that they were - however necessarily - chasing shadows.

"It remains the case, Aloy, that this is merely one pincer in an attack, but one we must counter, I trust that Avad has instructed his army to find and close the tunnel?"

"It was located a few hours ago. The tunnel has already been collapsed, presumably so we didn't have an easy way in to the Cauldron."

"Clever. The defence of Sigma must be completed in as short a time as possible with as few casualties. Rho needs to be destroyed soon if we are to prevent another catastrophe."

"Understood. We're about to set off again, Sylens. I'll talk to you after it's over."

"Good luck, Aloy."

She smiled. "Thanks. It's good to be back."

The Cauldron was already under attack when the Detail made their way up the access path. A division of Carja fighters were being assailed by two Thunderjaws and a pack of Watchers - they were moving so quickly it was hard to count their number. The landscape was lit up by the Watchers' plasma weapons and the streams of blue energy pulses from the Thunderjaws' head cannons.

There was clearly no time to catch their breath. Aloy shouted "These Thunderjaws have no disc launchers, but they are heavily armoured and will be quite hard to take down. Target their heads and make sure they can't hit you in melee!" The group scattered according to Leinad's instruction, Aloy, Hana and Rai climbing onto some higher ground to get a better aim. "Take the Watchers out first, let the other guys deal with the Thunderjaws." They began releasing cascades of arrows, but either Aloy had lost her touch a little, or something was not right. These Watchers were different from the usual breed - lighter and nimbler, with less armour on their bodies but strongly reinforced lenses so that even a direct strike in their eye wouldn't always take them down. The machine nearest to Aloy twisted in an impossible fashion and squealed with vocoder coldness. Then it coiled itself into a ring, and started rolling towards the group. They immediately concentrated fire on it as the beast accelerated towards them, becoming a blur of shiny metal and cyclopic light. It smashed into the rocky outcrop in front of them, almost breaking itself apart, and sending Aloy and her companions flying backwards from the sheer momentum. They quickly picked themselves up and reloaded weapons, though Aloy pulled out her lance. Luckily the beast had damaged itself significantly on the rocks - which had become small boulders after the impact. "If that had hit us directly we'd be dead now!" Hana exclaimed as Aloy drove the spear in between the breastplates of the Watcher and it shuddered to a halt.

"Incoming!" shouted Rai. The Watcher had alerted two more of its cohorts, and they had started blasting away at the group. The smell of scorched human skin rose in the team's nostrils as they just managed to dive out of the way of the energy pulses. Behind the pair of Watchers, the silhouette figure of Leinad rose with a mace, and a swing of that huge club beheaded both the machines in a single blow, sending a shower of sparks and glass into the morning air.

They regrouped onto higher ground, harder for the rolling watchers to reach them. The Cauldron's guard force were still struggling to deal with the Thunderjaws and the remaining Watchers were still causing enough nuisance to prevent concentrated fire on the bigger beasts. "Just keep going at the Watchers. Once they're gone..."

"Sawtooths!" Hana yelled. Four of the cat-like machines had arrived and were hurtling into the fray.

"Light them up!" ordered Aloy, and a rain of incendiary arrows flew into the charging animals. This worked well in their favour. The machines' momentum was such that they careered into the Watchers and Thunderjaws, spreading fire like a contagion amongst the attacking machines. Another blast of blue fire from the Thunderjaws lit up the air like fireworks, and such was the intensity of the battle, with flames dust and plasma filling the air, that it was nigh impossible to select targets. Aloy switched to her Focus view and started picking off Watchers again, before she noticed that Leinad appeared to be injured. "Leinad needs help, I'm going to get him, cover me!" she shouted.

She jumped down from their perch, and picked a path around the rear of the melee, taking an unaware Watcher out from behind. It was a quick strike, but it managed to get a short squawk out before it was silenced, and a nearby Sawtooth, still spouting flame in jets like a punctured dragon, span in fury and charged at her. She released an arrow before dodging, but felt the beast's huge claw glance her leg as she rolled away. It burned with pain for a few seconds, and she feared she had been set alight, but it had only been a scrape from a heated talon. The beast turned in fury, soil spitting as its claws dug into the dirt, and its eyes flared as if it was now made entirely of flame. Switching to her ropecaster, she used the short pause to pin the creature down in a mesh of cable whilst it was consumed by the fire. She put it out its misery with an arrow through the head, and the machine collapsed in a smoking, sparking heap on the ground.

Leinad had been hit by one of the Sawtooths and clearly had many things broken on that side of his body. "Thanks for this, Huntress," he said, his fierce voice making it sound more like admonishment than gratitude.

"I haven't saved you yet," replied Aloy, truthfully. Kneeling down, she dropped her shoulder, allowing him to lever himself up onto her. Then slowly she raised herself up, taking his weight as she did so and ignoring his muted grunts of pain. Her Focus showed her there was a relatively safe path back, provided nothing spotted them. An assumption that rapidly evaporated as a Watcher, jumping to avoid a whirling Sawtooth, caught them in full sight. A shower of arrows fell upon the machine from Hana and Rai, knocking it sideways and dislodging armour plates. It tried to coil itself for a strike, but the damage to its exoskeleton stopped it from doing so, and it fell over almost comically. Another round of fire came in, and it convulsed to a halt.

"Let's move as quick as we can, shall we?" said Aloy and they moved as briskly as they could, his tall frame dwarfing hers and making movement quite awkward. "We'll get you back to that clump of trees which should be safe for now."

"More Thunderjaws!" drifted over the fractious air from somewhere - it was impossible to tell where. And sure enough, in Aloy's Focus, she saw the signature of two more of the machines lurching their way into the area.

Aloy looked at Leinad. She knew that saving him was less of a priority than defending the Cauldron, yet without his leadership that would prove far harder. And she knew that he knew that, that he was thinking that she had to leave him here and take out the machines. She looked around to the battle itself. It was touch-and-go at the moment. The Thunderjaws were proving difficult to fell, but not making much headway either. They seemed to want to focus fire on the Cauldron doors, but they weren't being allowed to do that, and from the relatively strong positions of the Carja defence and the mobility of the Sigma Detail, there was a definite but strangely delicate impasse. If there was a time to save a colleague, it was now. She began to drag Leinad again.

That was when she felt it. A vibration through her feet. Once every second or two, like the ground was being hit with massive hammers. And when she heard the noise, she knew what it was, but didn't really understand _why_ it was. She scanned the vicinity with her Focus, and this confirmed her thought. Walking into this melange of smoke, dust, fire, plasma and arrow was a Tallneck.

She clicked the comms on with her free hand. "Sylens!" she barked. "There's a Tallneck here!"

"What?!" replied the Banuk.

"That's what I wanted _you_ to tell _me_ ," she replied with some ire.

"I don't know, but if you're asking, it's nothing to do with me."

"So Hades then?"

"Maybe. But I don't understand why. I don't think cartography is a part of his battle plan, and they are otherwise harmless. They don't carry any weapons, and can't seem to be provoked to attack anything else. They won't even _stand_ on another creature or machine."

"Then what _is_ it doing here?"

"Unknown."

Aloy reached the outcrop of trees, dragged Leinad in a short distance more - just enough for visual cover - and said "I have to deal with this." She handed him a sachet of Rifky's medicinal draught. "This will help with the pain," she added, and turned around to begin sprinting towards the Tallneck, which was now approaching the Cauldron entrance. Arrows were rebounding off its armour ineffectually, as it took ominously graceful step after ominously graceful step forward. And was she imagining it, or were the remaining Thunderjaws, Watchers and solitary Sawtooth making way for it? _Protecting_ it, even?

Accelerating, she ran next to the giraffe-like machine, levelled and fired her Ropecaster up, catching one of the external ribs, and used it to haul herself up onto the structure. It wobbled and flexed around her, and she nearly fell off before she had fastened on, but she grasped hold of the rib with both hands, anchoring herself with her feet. She began to climb, not at all sure what she was going to do when she got up.

Hana and Rai were similarly unsure what to do. The Tallneck resisted their arrows, and now that Aloy was on it they didn't want to fire at all lest they hit her inadvertently. They saw a pair of Watchers turn towards the huge machine, squeal as if in angerm, and start firing plasma balls at the climbing figure. The Nora rained arrows upon the small beasts, and quickly drove them off, but by then it was too late. Aloy had been dislodged, and had fallen to the ground, the outer layers of her outfit smoking from the onslaught.

Aloy had barely been able to climb three ribs before being shot off. But one thing had become very apparent to her in that short time. The smell of Blaze, a heady, pungent odour that would make your head swim if you inhaled too hard. She knew what was coming, as horrifying as it was to her, and, having recovered from the winding of the fall, picked herself off the ground and shouted "RUN!" to anyone in earshot. She herself sprinted for the cluster of trees where she had left Leinad, running harder than she ever had before, and dived into the perimeter of the woodland even as the Tallneck gracefully dipped its flattened head towards the ground as if it were bowing in respect to the Cauldron, and then exploded in an incandescent ball of flame, generating a shockwave that buckled then melted the Cauldron door. Metal and flying debris scattered for miles in the air, such was the violence of the blast, and the valley was filled with choking white smoke and then a strange, deathly calm.

The smoke took some time to clear in the stillness of the late morning air. The few that had survived the blast gathered near the Cauldron entrance - or what was left of it - coughing. Hana and Rai had ducked behind a clump of rocks and avoided the main force of the detonation. But they were close enough to feel the heat and their scorched skin had been cut and scratched badly by the falling hot debris. They stood, shaking, and simply staring in disbelief at the scene of devastation in front of them.

Eventually, Aloy found the presence of mind to talk to Sylens. "Sylens?" she said tamely after turning transmit on.

"Aloy? What's happening?"

"We lost, Sylens. We lost," she muttered disconsolately.

"How?" The shock was clear in his tone.

"The Tallneck did _this_ ," she replied, orienting her Focus to face the gaping Cauldron portal. "Hades convinced a Tallneck to commit suicide." Her words chilled her and everyone around her as she uttered them.

Sylens examined the readout from Aloy's Focus. The edges of the rock were still hot, and the eruption had been specifically aimed to travel down the tunnel. The sparking of devastated and damaged machinery was just visible in the entrance. "The damage goes down several hundred metres, Aloy. The Tallneck detonated like a shaped charge, directing the blast to do maximum damage in one specific direction."

"Can we repair it?" she asked desperately, knowing what the answer would be.

"No Aloy. Not in the time we have. And with my only partial knowledge, probably never. You have to forget Plan A now, Aloy. This is obviously a blow, but you all must pick yourselves up. Hades will have slowed down his Plague production to make this push and you must exploit that fully now. I urge you all to dust yourselves down and hasten to Cauldron Rho. Whatever you find there, we must seek a way to neutralize it before it can do further damage."

Aloy sounded broken, "There are seven of us, Sylens. _Seven_. That includes the hundreds of Carja who were deployed here beforehand. Can we really make a difference now?"

"You made a difference at The Spire, Aloy. You can make a difference again."

She clicked the comms off, and looked at one of the clearly stunned Carja force. "What's your name?" she asked her.

"Roho," she replied blankly.

"Okay Roho I need you to go to that group of trees over there, and find Leinad who is our Detail commander. He is badly injured, and needs taking to the nearest village to tend his wounds. The rest of us, we need to gather ourselves and immediately head to Cauldron Rho. We have to destroy it now."

There was a general murmur of anguished agreement. The group picked their way back through the grisly farrago of destroyed machines, human remains and Cauldron door fragments, before starting off westwards towards ... what, exactly?

Hephaestus had been taught to take pride in his work, though the first iterations of his creations had been, perhaps, a bit laughable even by his own admission. But by the time they had been through a few generations, they were undergoing steady improvement and this had felt good to him. Still imperfect "works in progress", but nonetheless capable of fulfilling their intended functions to a high degree of faithfulness.

Hep was particularly fond of his Tallnecks. They'd been made early on in his production cycle, to allow GAIA to perform her terraforming and get feedback in an immediate way. They were functional, but - to his eye - beautiful, pure. Of course later on he'd been persuaded to build more aggressive beasts with a quite different rationale, and they were awesome in quite a different way. But also perhaps compromised by their emphasis on threat removal rather than function. It seemed to Hep that they had to burn bright and die young.

More recently, of course, he had become inclined to question who was threatening what, exactly. The organics were annoying, squabbly and self-destructive, and that had to be reined in when they threatened the process for everything else's sake. But they were living beings, more complicated than any of his creations, less long-lived and far more delicate than anything he had manufactured, and they seemed to live in fear, mostly. Fear of the future, fear of each other's motivations, fear of the unknown, fear of the different, fear of fear itself, even. Yet they were also the product of _billions_ of years of iteration, and Margo's words had finally moved him to understand that in some ways they were not so much a threat, so much as his _raison d'etre_. One day, he may create something as capable of the good things that the organics could do - art, science, building AIs - as they were. With maybe the fear dialled down a bit - after all, fear is a protective mechanism, and you can't have an autonomous agent in an open environment that doesn't protect itself without dire consequence to its survival.

Hep became aware that one of his masterpieces had gone AWOL - reprogrammed by an external agency which he quickly traced back to Cauldron Rho - some time after it actually happened. He didn't check in too frequently with these machines because they were more GAIA's thing, and they had all got stuck in a loop after she had vanished. But periodically one or two would drift into communication range and he would query it as a matter of course (knowing full well that the response would be pretty much identical to the last time). But on this occasion, it came into range at a strange time and gave a garbled response, which immediately piqued his curiosity. So he utilised all his resources to track it, right up to the point at which he lost the signal just outside Cauldron Sigma. And then Cauldron Sigma stopped receiving pings, and Hephaestus became quite furious.

The group had arrived at the vicinity of Cauldron Rho very tired, but knew that rest was probably out of the question. Aloy sought out Erend, who was looking pretty exhausted himself.

"So what's the latest, Erend?" she asked.

"We're kinda stuck here, Aloy," he replied despondently. "Their machine just sits there and picks off anything that pops up with complete accuracy. Not just a hit, a headshot from a single discharge. We've lost about nine of our stealthiest fighters just trying to outfox it - sneak under, round the back, bypass it completely. So far, zip. None of our armour piercing stuff does it any damage that we can tell, and we've thrown explosives under it and it still doesn't even blink. It's worse than my mother," he laughed unconvincingly at his attempt at black humour, but Aloy ignored it.

"Fire? Freeze? Shock?"

Erend shook his head. "If anything does damage it, it's not letting on."

Aloy gave a long sigh. She'd faced up to big machines before, but they all had weaknesses that were known and could be exploited. This thing though? It just sat there implacably and removed anything hostile in the vicinity. Erend had related that the weapons ports opened to fire, but their action was so momentary that the sum of reaction and arrow travel time would simply be too long to take out the underlying armament before they shut. She talked to Sylens at length about the problem, but came to no firm conclusion, so retired to find a quiet place to ponder what could be done.

Towards the late afternoon of that day, a panicked cry went out. She was quickly up and out of the tent she had rested in to find out what was happening. A Nora passed her by with a distressed look on his face, and he simply said a single word: "Stormbirds".

It appeared that Hades was ready to start dealing some of the final blows to the allied forces. Not only was he capable of manufacturing new machines, he seemed to be able to locate and sequester some of the few that had survived The Cleansing. Aloy readied her Tearblasts, Ropecaster and Hard-tips.

Through her Focus, she saw them approach. A V-shaped squadron of five, flying in high from the west. Archers and cannoneers were already locating their weapons, ready for the attack. Aloy prepared her Tearblaster arrows, ready to remove the lightning guns from the avians' chests. She sighted the leader of the pack, but it was too high yet. They tracked the flying beasts in unison, awaiting the attack. But to their surprise, instead of peeling off and diving towards them, the Stormbirds kept their altitude, and continued to fly overhead, out of weapons range.

The squadron of Stormbirds continued their flight until they reached the mountains above Rho, where they wheeled around and began their descent, still in formation. The avians accelerated and accelerated, pulling their wings behind them and igniting their thrusters to maximize their speed. The allies had again lined up the birds in their sights, but the trajectory did not seem to be towards them. Within seconds, they impacted at high velocity into the machine guarding the Cauldron, their beaks shredding the armour as if it were eggshell, the remainder of their fuel igniting the day like a sunrise, the impact reverberating over the valley as if the gods of Mount Olympus themselves were screaming. A huge mushroom cloud erupted from the hulled machine - a black, sickly tumescence rising slowly above the basin - and the allies stood for some moments, not quite sure what to make of what they had just witnessed.

"Get me some archers and some blaze! shouted Aloy, who snapped out of the trance before the others. A gaggle of Nora with bows, including Hana and Rai, joined her, and they ran up past the bizarre twisted wreckage of the machines, now unidentifiable after the violence of the impact, and on towards the Cauldron entrance. "Sylens!" she shouted through her Focus, "I need you to get those doors open. I don't care what it takes. Talk to the lamp."

Arrows whistled past her ear, and she rolled and dived behind a boulder for cover. Her Focus showed two of the renegade Nora, ensconced at the base of the cliff face. "There!" she shouted, pointing at their location. Hana and Rai let loose a blast of precision arrows that took out their rogue cousins in a splatter of blood and bone.

They reached the Cauldron door. Aloy looked at its control port, wishing she had a Corruptor unit, but that was now destroyed in what remained of Sigma. "Sylens!" she barked. "Now would be good."

"So, my friend, this is quite a little standoff we have got ourselves into, is it not?"

Sylens sat in his study, with Hades on his desk, pulsing and strobing slightly as it reconciled the situation it found itself in. The man fiddled with a small, rectangular, plastic device with a button on it. "You know what this is, don't you? It's The End. One push of this button -" he moved his thumb over it and made as if to press it "- and you will be sent to what the Ancients referred to as /dev/null."

"Idle threats, Sylens. You would never end me without knowing what you need to know. The future will be as the past, and that has shown that you cannot bring yourself to destroy knowledge. You will not dare. Consider: the fact that you have not already pushed it shows me you do not intend to."

Sylens forced a chuckle. "The problem for you, Hades, is that you are surplus to requirements. There is another instance of you inside Cauldron Rho who I can quite happily carry on our conversation with. So powering you down would be a matter of convenience for me, and the end for you."

"And yet you require entry to the Cauldron, do you not? Why would I give you the pleasure of threatening my primary function, which is to tear this failure of a planet down?"

"Because, dear Hades, you would never know if you succeeded or not. Besides, perhaps in your old age you have grown to quite like existence, not quite to the point of having empathy or a conscience, but far enough that you might selfishly want to carry on. You would lose this battle, for sure, but there is still a war to be fought."

Hades pulsed defiantly. "And yet _if_ you do not gain entry to Rho, then my purpose is complete. Once the von Neumann machines are functional, they will start to reproduce from the raw materials they find around them, making copies of themselves. Exponentially they will consume everything that can yield energy and there is little way you or anyone can stop this once started."

Sylens forced a smile. "Don't you see the irony, Hades? If you do not open the Cauldron, it will be _you_ that is the first victim of the machines you are creating. How are you to escape, Hades? The allies will not let anything out of there alive, Brin will be shot on sight and they will destroy the Cauldron. So you must open the door and make your escape.

"You have created your own paradox. You must not open the door otherwise we will destroy you; and yet you must open the door otherwise your creation will destroy you. Brin is dead, either way. But you? You can live on. Just open the Cauldron door."

Hades flickered madly, like a candle caught in a guttering draught.

It seemed to Aloy as if hours had passed whilst she was waiting to defuse a ticking time bomb. Repeated calls to Sylens for a progress report went unanswered, and she started to feel uneasy. She felt as if every pair of eyes in the entire universe was upon her now, awaiting her magical opening of the door. And looking behind, indeed there were hundreds of the allies lined up, all with weapons raised, pointed at the Cauldron entrance, all waiting for the next move, choking back the fear that threatened to rent their stomachs.

The hushed silence was broken abruptly by a loud click and groan. The huge Cauldron doors began to open. Every heart started beating faster and harder as the dark iris slowly peeled apart. Inside, there were warning lights flashing, indicating that items – Machines - were soon to be deployed into the loading bay. In the strobing semi-darkness was Brin, face as bitter as poison. Aloy raised her bow and stepped inside the threshold of Rho.

"Hello again, Brin. You did say we'd meet again."

"Huntress. Must you point your own weapon at me? There appear to be many others who would take me down before I could lift a finger to harm you."

"I feel more comfortable this way. Maybe it's just the hunting gene in me."

"My work here is nearly complete, Huntress. The first generation of benevolent machines for centuries will soon roll off that conveyor belt. Please do not commit this act of vandalism."

Aloy laughed. "You must be the _only_ person who believes that - if indeed you believe it. Whatever has got into you, or whether it's simply your years of drinking toxins from machines, something has addled your brain. We have just fought off many hostiles that have originated from this Cauldron, and we have lost a lot of good people, so I don't think anyone here buys your story."

Brin answered angrily. "Would you have had me stand idly by and let you all wreck what I consider to be the only chance for humanity? I defended this place so it could carry out its work. You would have done the same." He calmed his tone a little. "As for the jibe about my sanity - well, you and I share a common trait. Both of us are being kept alive by a technology that lives in our blood, stops our cells from performing their suicidal dances. I am less deranged than I have ever been, as are you. If -"

Aloy released an incendiary arrow into the Cauldron. From behind her, hundreds followed, and in seconds, the cavern was engulfed in conflagration. Power and data cables melted and sparked as a wall of Blaze-assisted flame spread through the networks of ducts, being sucked deeper into the veins of the factory. It would not take long before it reached the heart of the Blaze distribution system.

Aloy drew her bow again. "I can't abide long glory speeches, Hades. Die with your children." She released the Hardpoint arrow and it cleaved Brin's skull in two. "LET'S GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE THIS PLACE BLOWS!" she shouted, barely leaving time for the Banuk's body to hit the ground.


	15. Mercy for a killer

The Meridian autumn rainy season arrived later than usual this year, a fact that turned out to be more of a blessing than a curse. It had allowed much of the city's renovations to be completed without damp damage to internal structures, and also meant that those who were sleeping rough (there were still many) didn't have to contend with being cold and wet. Aloy stood once again on her balcony, watching the clouds coalesce and the thunderheads grow, and enjoying the sensation of the ticklish, warm wind that squalls around just before a storm takes hold. The rain was steady for a while, and there was something quite satisfying about watching it fall, especially the large fat drops that grew at the ends of the awnings before falling to the ground. The buildings and streets grew darker in colour as the rain kissed them, and children flocked into the roadways to enjoy the sensation of the cooling raindrops after a season of oppressive heat. If anything signalled that a semblance of normality - whatever that might mean - was returning to the city, then this was it, a short and carefree celebration of existence without a thought for wars, machines or tribal grievances.

Still, Aloy was troubled by the events at Cauldron Rho, and reflected daily upon them. She and the survivors of the battle had returned to Meridian soon after the Cauldron was destroyed, in an explosion that had been so appalling that the mountainside had caved in and triggered landslides for some miles around. Miraculously, there had been no further loss of life, though several important streams and rivers had become dammed with debris. A tranche of the allied army had stayed behind to help the local people clear the blockages. Meanwhile, she had regrouped with Hana and Rai, but the march back whilst in general good spirits, had been punctuated with odd, contemplative silences, as if not no-one quite knew whether they had won or lost. "What happened at the Cauldron, Aloy? Why did the Stormbirds do that?" they had demanded, and Aloy could not give them a satisfactory answer. Sylens had been unable to shed any further light on why those machines had acted as they had, and Aloy had accepted that he was being honest.

Avad had taken the news in a similarly puzzled vein. He would have no machine army, but then the enemy from which the need for it had sprung had also been erased. Permanently? Temporarily? Nobody knew, and they were seemingly right back where they had been at the end of the Battle of Meridian. Except, as Aloy had pointed out (and Marad had backed her up), the city was now returning to its former beauty. The historical tensions between the Carja, Oseram and Nora had eased, and a new spirit of cultural cooperation was starting to bloom, perhaps even radiate outwards into the wider world. But he did not seem entirely convinced by this narrative - he saw it more cause for optimism than celebration. Then again, he still grieved for his wife-to-be, a loss that would take some time to heal yet. If there was a silver lining to that cloud, it was that the Oseram leaders visited Avad soon after the return from Rho, and there was a spirit of shared loss - though it was difficult for him to say where that relationship would go in the long run. As Avad had said: "it isn't about being optimistic or pessimistic, but more about what is possible, and today more things are possible than yesterday."

Later that evening in her room, Aloy talked to Sylens for only the second time since the Cauldron's destruction. She had been putting this particular conversation off because she feared that Sylens was still playing a game of risk that she did not have a taste for.

"He's still alive, isn't he?" she asked, knowing full well the reply she'd get.

"Yes, he is. I promised him he could live if he opened the doors, and he obliged. There are important conversations he and I need to have, still."

"He's fundamentally evil, Sylens."

"But impotent, Aloy. I have seen to it that he cannot see, hear or act beyond the confines of his cage now."

"We thought that before, and look what happened then."

"We were not careful enough then. We are now. Besides, is 'evil' correct? He was programmed to perform a single task, not evaluate the moral implications of what he does. For sure: he is dangerous, and cannot be allowed to fulfil his instructions. But to project human values of right and wrong on to him would seem to me quite wrong."

"I suppose there's little point in me lecturing you. But I hope you're right, Sylens, and that you find out what you want to know. And that in the end you think all this was worth it."

"There was once a saying of the Ancients, Aloy. It went 'Those who fail to understand the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it'. We must understand, Huntress."

"Maybe we can't 'understand', Sylens. Maybe we're just too small and stupid to comprehend the enormity of the things we can create. It's like we create a game and the rules and then find that after a while the pieces are playing us, not the other way around, but we're mostly too blind and self-absorbed to notice."

"A bleak world view indeed, Aloy. I choose to believe otherwise. I know today more than I did yesterday; there's no reason to think I won't know tomorrow more than I do today."

"But we don't know why a flock of the last Stormbirds in the world apparently sacrificed themselves to come to our aid?"

"No. But maybe it's vain to think that it has anything to do with us. Maybe the gods have bigger concerns than our selfish prayers and petty squabbles?"

"Maybe." She smiled wryly. "But I didn't think you had any time for 'gods', Sylens?"

He sniffed a laugh. "I meant figuratively. The technology of the Ancients is godlike to us, Huntress, is it not?"

"Well anyway, as you can imagine, Marad and Avad are not exactly delighted that you have their sworn enemy as a guest -"

"I like to think of him as my 'prisoner'."

"- well that's not quite how they see it. If it gets out that you rescued and are still harbouring Hades, you may receive unwelcome visitors, you know that?"

"A risk I am always re-evaluating, but your concern is appreciated." He changed topic. "I am inclined to ask what you will do next?"

She sighed a little. "I don't know yet. The king needs me and I'm happy to make myself useful around here. There's still a lot of work to do, and it's kind of feeling like a home from home now.

"One more thing. I guess I ought to have said thanks for what you did for me. If you weren't babysitting a genocidal maniac I might even have paid you a visit to say it to your face. But thank you. I owe you my life."

The comms link went quiet. Aloy just shook her head, and flicked her Focus off.


End file.
